viii Preface. 



In grouping together at the close of this volume all the genera-, 

 enumerated according to the products, which they yield, facility is afforded 

 for tracing out any series of plants, regarding which special economic 

 information may be sought, or which may at any time prominently 

 engage the attention of the cultivator, the manufacturer or the artisan. 

 Again, the placing together in index-form of the respective industrial 

 plants according to their geographic distribution, as has likewise been 

 done in the concluding pages, has rendered it easy, to order or obtain 

 from abroad the plants of such other countries, with which any settlers 

 or colonists may be in relation, through commercial, literary or other 

 intercourse. Lists like the present may also aid in naming the plants 

 and their products with scientific correctness in establishments of 

 economic horticulture or in technologic or other educational collections. 

 If the line of demarcation between the plants, admissible into this list 

 and those which should have been excluded, has occasionally been 

 extended in favor of the latter, then it must be pleaded, that the final 

 value of any particular species for a peculiar want, locality or treatment 

 cannot always be fully foretold. Doubtless, many plants of primary 

 importance for rural requirements, here again alluded to, have long since 

 been secured by intelligent early pioneers of immigration, who timely 

 strove to enrich the cultural resources of their adopted country. In these 

 efforts the writer, so far as his public or private means would permit, 

 has endeavored for more than a quarter of a century to take an honor- 

 able share. But although such plants are introduced, they are not in 

 all instance as yet widely diffused, nor tested in all desirable localities. 

 For the sake of completeness even the most ordinary cultural plants have 

 not been passed, as the opportunity seemed an apt one, to offer a few 

 cursory remarks on their value also. 



The writer entertains a hope, that a copy of this plain volume may 

 find a place in the library of every educational establishment for occa- 

 sional and perhaps frequent reference to its pages. The increased ease 

 of communication, which has latterly arisen between nearly all parts of 

 the globe, places us now also in a fair position for independent efforts, to 

 suggest or promote introductions of new vegetable treasures from unex- 

 plored regions, or to submit neglected plants of promising value to 

 unbiassed original tests. It may merely be instanced, that after the 

 lapse of more than three centuries since the conquest of Mexico, only 

 the most scanty information is extant on the timber of that empire, and 

 that of several thousand tropical grasses not many dozen have been tried 

 with rural or chemical exactitude for pasture-purposes, not to speak of 



