BOTANft'. 371 



LECTURES ON BOTANY 



AS CONNECTED W I T 1£ A G U 1 C U L T U R E . 



Who can read the fullowiiif^ without being again powerfully impressed with 

 the necessity of such a reform in our systems of rural education as shall insure 

 the youth of the country, who are to live by the labor and products of the coun- 

 try, being early instructed, not in a senseless repetition of speeches by Greek 

 and Roman orators and generals, as — " My voice is still for war," &:c. — but in 

 branches of knowledge that will ofen to them the beauties of their own pursuit, 

 and lead them to see that it cannot be followed with the highest profit or honor 

 without a better insight into the sciences that serve to enlighten the practice of it. 



Does any one undertake to manage and direct all the complicated operations 

 of a large manufactory, without having served an apprenticeship to the business 

 and learning its mysteries i And yet is it not obvious that Agriculture, too, is 

 nothing but a manufacture ? For the manufacturer's business is so to manage 

 and combine and bring into cooperation his soil, seed, manure, labor, and vari- 

 ous materials, as that out of them he may most economically supply himself 

 with other products more desirable, as beef, butter, cheese, cotton, sugar, rice, 

 oorn, wheat, &:c. What, then, but a great manufactory on a large scale, and 

 requiring rare tact and high qualities in conducting it, is such an estate, for in- 

 stance, as Hopeton, near Darien, Georgia, which employs not less than $30,000- 

 worth of machinery, in its various operations? 



How gratifying to see Governor Aiken, and all other Governors in the country^ 

 calling the attention of Legislatures to provision for school instruction in the sci- 

 cnces applicable to Agriculture ' The truth is, that there is no guaranty in any- 

 thing but that for permanent, sure, wide-spread, respectable, and progressive im- 

 provement in this greatest, because most useful of all arts. But we have not time 

 to indulge in the rcHections that rush upon the mind, with deeper and deeper con- 

 victions of its importance, whenever we begin to write or think on this matter- 

 Our present purpose was merely to submit the following to the mind of the 

 reader, and to ask respectfully of every father whether he ought not to feel the 

 same obligation to have his son instructed in these branches of useful as well a& 

 elegant knowledge, so directly allied to his calling that he would do to have his 

 leg well set if fractured by a fall from a horse. A crooked leg is unseemly, to 

 be sure, but the father of true sensibility will regard in his son a crooked or 

 empty mind as a much more lamentable deformity. But, thank Heaven ! the 

 ball is in motion. See Doctor Thomson's letter, and a thousand other auspi- 

 cious signs. 



COURSE OF LECTURES ON BOTANY IN REFERENCE TO AGRICULTURE. 



By Charles Joh.vson, Esq., Professor of Botany at Guy's Hospital, 4-c. 4-c. At Messrs. 

 Nesbit's Agricultural arid Scientific Training School, Kciinington Lane, Lambclh, near 



London. 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. [.coutimie to be, of the utmost importauce to 



We commence this day a series of Lectures 

 on Botany, not as an abstract science, but a.s 

 one intimately connected with various branches 

 of hum;m economy, and more especially with 

 ihat which, as it ever has been, so it must 

 (755) 



mankind, viz., the cultivation of the earth, tht 

 prime source of our civilizaiion and of aU 

 most every art that ministers to the elevation 

 and improvement of Society. Itself an art of 

 the liighest antiquity, Agiiculturo must al- 



