272 Herbert's Amarjflliddccce. 



excel in this department of their profession should make them- 

 selves early acquainted with the views propounded in it. That 

 a clear knowledge of vegetable physiology and botany is indis- 

 pensable to gardeners, need not be insisted on ; though a know- 

 ledge of the former is of far the greatest importance to them ; the 

 former amounting to a matter of necessity, the latter being only a 

 matter of convenience. Setting aside the enjoyments derivable 

 from natural history generally, but more particularly from that 

 department of it called botany, gardeners ought to have a good 

 practical knowledge of botany, if it were merely for their own 

 private convenience : therefore such a work as this under con- 

 sideration, tending in an eminent degree to supply and simplify 

 the means of acquiring this knowledge, cannot be too strongly 

 urged on their consideration. The truth is, that much progress 

 will not be made in the application of the science of botany to 

 vegetable culture, till such a state of society occurs as will call 

 forth a race of gardeners, any one of whom could produce a 

 work of a similar nature to this of Mr. Herbert. Each gar- 

 dener, in such a state of things, we may suppose, would take a 

 natural order, and experiment and treat upon it as Mr. Herbert 

 has done with Amarylli^/rtC£'<^. 



After clearly pointing out the utter impossibility of ever 

 arranging the real natural affinities of plants on a satisfactory 

 basis under the Jussieuan system, Mr. Herbert points out, in 

 the following comprehensive passage, the only mode by which it 

 is ever likely to arrive at a desirable result: — " There is but one 

 mode of proceeding with a view to place the divisions on a sound 

 and durable footing; and that is, to found every separation on a 

 single fact, and to work downwards from the first division, with 

 cautious examination of the relative importance and consequent 

 priority of the facts by which the subordinate divisions are to be 

 limited. This has not yet been done; but, whether I live to see 

 it accomplished or not, I am confident that, sooner or later, it 

 must be effected; because it is the only mode of classification 

 consistent with nature." 



To show more clearly what he means by "simple facts," the 

 author adduces the first grand divisions of the vegetable kingdom, 

 the phanerogamous and cryptogamous, the dicotyledonous and 

 monocotyledonous, and " perhaps acotyledonous," plants. " It 

 will not appear," he adds, " that any kindred races are found 

 indiscriminately in either division : these lines, therefore, are 

 clear and substantial." Mr. Herbert then confidently asserts, 

 that, if Jussieu had been aware of what horticultural experi- 

 ments have revealed since his time, he would have adopted the 

 same view as that laid down in this work; and that he only 

 proposes applying " the doctrine of Jussieu to facts which have 

 since come to liorht." These " facts " are so multitudinous and 



