INTRODUCTION. 



of agriculture were first rendered necessary, and 

 seeds first sown by the hand of man, doomed for the 

 future " to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow."* A. C. 



OQQQ 



This was the period in which we find Cain repre- perhaps, 

 sented by the sacred historian as " a tiller of the 

 ground,"-^ and the state of society in which the in- 

 ventors of useful arts were regarded by the heathens 

 as celestial beings that had deigned to reside on 

 earth.^ 



A third stage was that in which plants began to 

 be regarded as furnishing not merely necessaries, 

 but comforts being the period in which we find A. C. 



2348 



Noah represented as a husbandman, having planted 

 a vineyard and drank of the wine ; || and cor- 

 responding, perhaps, to the period of the invention 

 of wine by the Bacchus of the heathens, or to a 

 similar state of advancement in the domestic arts. 



A fourth stage was that in which plants began at 

 length to be regarded and studied, or cultivated as 

 furnishing not merely comforts, but luxuries the 

 period in which we find the Ishmaelites represented 

 as trafficking in spicery, and balm, and myrrh, 

 which they carried down from Gilead to Egypt in 

 the days of Joseph. 



Hitherto there is no vestige to be found of any 

 thing like phytological investigation, though it can- 



* Gen. iii. lp. f Ibid. iv. ?* 



I Priraa Ceres unco glebam dimovit aratro* 



Ovid. Met. lib. v. 341. 



(1 Gen, ix, 20. Gen. xxxvii, 25, 



B 2 



