A SYSTEM 



OF 



PHYSIOLOGICAL BOTANY 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE great profusion of vegetables which cover 

 the surface of the earth and adorn it with their 

 bloom or verdure, as well as the great and indispen- 

 sable utility of vegetable productions to the support 

 of animal life, must necessarily have attracted the 

 notice and excited the inquiries of mankind even 

 in the earliest ages. Hence the study of plants 

 may be regarded as co-eval with the creation of 

 man. But to this study, it is to be believed, that 

 men were originally stimulated only from the im- 

 pulse of their immediate wants ; regarding not the 

 invention of methods nor discovery of scientific 

 truths, but the means of converting the productions 

 of nature to their use and accommodation. It is 

 long before the mind is allured to the study of the 

 works of God merely from the love of speculative 



VOL. I. B 



