310 IMPORTANCE OF 



district ; and so it seemed for some ten or fifteen 

 years. But, alas ! the epidendric miasma (as those 

 who believe in aerial infections would probably call 

 it) was in the air, and the epidendric poison was at 

 the roots ; and never did dry rot consume a beam 

 of bad oak more certainly, or even more rapidly, 

 than all the fair promises of future forests were 

 swept from those moors. In a whole mile a clown 

 cannot now find a rude walking-stick; and even the 

 little grove by the ruined fortilage has departed with- 

 out axe or fire, and the ruins are as bare as ever. 



Innumerable instances of the same kind might be 

 given, all tending to show that we have " much to 

 learn," and therefore must observe much before we 

 come to any certain general conclusion, about the 

 germination and the growth of vegetables. But 

 vegetables are, as it were, the foundations of our 

 whole cultivated productions, as without them we 

 could neither have animals nor implements. Hence, 

 if we are to have any claim to the title of useful 

 observers, we must so observe as to keep those 

 general relations always in view. It is not enough 

 that we see a beautiful flower, or any other attract- 

 ive appearance ; and that we give it a name, local or 

 learned, and set down every particular in the form 

 and arrangement of its parts, the tints of its colour, 

 its taste, its odour, the time of its appearance, the 

 length of its continuance, and the period at which it 

 is gone. All that is but an amplification of the 

 name a resolving of that into those parts of the 

 sum of which in their union it is the sign ; for, if 

 we understand the name, it will bring all those par- 

 ticulars to our recollection. To take a simple in- 

 stance, the name "daisy" will suggest to the mind 

 all the observable properties of that flower, which 

 are known to the person by whom that name is pro- 

 nounced, whether it be restricted to the little daisy 

 with the crimson tipped petals, which has been called 

 " daisy," or " day's eye-" from its closing at night 



