2 INTRODUCTION. 



knowledge. And in the progress of the study of 

 plants, there were many stages preparatory to this 

 period of advancement. 



The first and incipient stage was that in which 

 the attention of the human mind was directed to 

 the discrimination of vegetables, as furnishing by 

 spontaneous production the indispensable necessaries 

 A. C. of life. This was the period of the origin of man- 

 kind, when man was yet obedient to his God, and 

 God satisfied with the work of his hands, the 

 spontaneous productions of the vegetable kingdom 

 having been given unto man for food.* In the 

 fabulous history of heathen mythology, it was re- 

 presented by the poets as the happy period of the 

 golden age, when laws were yet unnecessary, and 

 arts and sciences unknown, and men simple in their 

 manners, and temperate in their desires, contented 

 with the frugal repast that was furnished by the 

 hand of nature.-}- 



Its pro- A second stage was that in which men began to 

 ducTb*e de ~ Direct their attention to vegetables, as capable of 

 [ scrip " furnishing, by means of cultivation, an increased 

 supply of food, proportioned to the wants of an in- 

 creased population. Then it was that the labours 



* Gen. i. 29- 



t Contentique cibis, nullo cogente, creatis 

 Arbuteos foetus, montanaque fraga legebant, 

 Cornaque, et in duris haerentia mora rubetis, 

 Et qua? deciderant patula Jovis arbore glandes. 



Ovid. Met, lib. i. 



