Vlll PEEP ACE. 



Lists like the present may aid also in naming the plants and their 

 products with scientific correctness in establishments of economic horti- 

 culture or in technologic or other educational collections. If the line 

 of demarkation between the plants admissible into this list and those 

 which should have been excluded has occasionally been extended in 

 favour of the latter, then it must be pleaded, that the final value of any 

 particular species for a peculiar want, locality, or treatment cannot often 

 be fully foretold. Many plants of primary importance for rural require- 

 ments alluded to now have long since been secured by the intelligent 

 early pioneers of immigration, who timely strove to enrich also the 

 cultural resources of their adopted country and in these efforts the 

 writer, so far as his public or private means did ever permit, has 

 endeavoured for more than a quarter of a century to take an honorable 

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

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

 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. The writer entertains a hope, that 

 a copy of this plain volume- will be placed in the library of any State 

 Schools, to serve educational purposes also by occasional and perhaps 

 frequent reference to these 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 unexplored 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 dozens have been tried with chemical exacti- 

 tude for pastoral purposes. For inquiries of such kind every civilised 

 State is striving to afford in well planned, thoughtfully directed, and 

 generously supported special scientific establishments the needful aid, 

 not merely for adding to the prosperity, comfort and enjoyment of the 

 present generation, but also with an anticipation of earning the grati- 

 tude of posterity ; and this as a rule is done with a sensitive jealousy, 



