BOTANY. 207 



of the utmost consequence to mankind, and productive of many 

 of the greatest comforts and elegancies of life. To plants we 

 owe timber, bread, beer, honey, wine, oil, linen, cotton, &c., what 

 not only strengthens our hearts, and exhilarates our spirits, but 

 what secures us from inclemencies of weather and adorns our 

 persons. Man, in his true state of nature, seems to be subsisted 

 by spontaneous vegetation : -in middle climes, where grasses pre- 

 vail, he mixes some animal food with the produce of the field and 

 garden : and it is towards the polar extremes only that, like his 

 kindred bears and wolves, he gorges himself with flesh alone, 

 and is driven, to what hunger has never been known to compel 

 the very beasts, to prey on his own species,.* 



The productions of vegetation have had a vast influence on the 

 commerce of nations, and have been the great promoters of navi- 

 gation, as may be seen in the articles of sugar, tea, tobacco, 

 opium, ginseng, betel, paper, &c. As every climate has its pe- 

 culiar produce, our natural wants bring on a mutual intercourse ; 

 so that by means of trade each distant part is supplied with the 

 growth of every latitude. But, without the knowledge of plants 

 and their culture, we must have been content with our hips and 

 haws, without enjoying the delicate fruits of India and the salu- 

 tiferous drugs of Peru. 



Instead of examining the minute distinctions of every various 

 species of each obscure genus, the botanist should endeavour to 

 make himself acquainted with those that are useful. You shall 

 see a man readily ascertain every herb of the field, yet hardly 

 know wheat from barley, or at least one sort of wheat or barley 

 from another. 



But of all sorts of vegetation the grasses seem to be most 

 neglected ; neither the farmer nor the grazier seem to distinguish 

 the annual from the perennial, the hardy from the tender, nor the 

 succulent and nutritive from the dry and juiceless. 



The study of grasses would be of great consequence to a 

 northerly, and grazing kingdom. The botanist that could im- 

 prove the swerd of the district where he lived would be a useful 

 member of society : to raise a thick turf on a naked soil would 

 be worth volumes of systematic knowledge ; and he would be 

 the best commonwealth's man that could occasion the growth of 

 " two blades of grass where one alone was seen before. "f 



I am, &c. 



* See the late Voyages to the South Seas. 



t This letter hag, with good reason, been often recommended to the attentive perusal of tin. 

 philosophical botanist. ED. 



