36 HOURS WITH NATURE. 



tobacco, ginseng, betel, paper '&c. As every climate has 

 its peculiar produce, our natural wants bring 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, with- 

 out enjoying the delicate fruits of India and the salu- 

 tiferous drugs of Peru." We have many advantages, 

 of soil, climate, vegetable and mineral productions ; 

 but powerless to use them for our good we choose to 

 be "content with hips and haws," while the nation to 

 which Gilbert White belonged has, since his days, rapid- 

 ly grown in wealth, power and influence. The Tea plant 

 must have been awaiting search and discovery in the 

 inaccessible jungles of Assam for ages past ; yet, it 

 waited in vain until a Griffith with the magic power of 

 knowledge made the jungle yield up its secret. 

 Another botanist, as we have already seen, introduced 

 the cultivation of Cinchona in India, which is now a 

 source of revenue to the Government. Instances may he 

 mutiplied to show that the science of Botany has a 

 much wider scope of usefulness than that of collecting, 

 naming, and classifying plants. It has influenced the 

 trade and commerce of the world. 



