

ILLUSTRATIONS. 135 



the plough, and other implements of agriculture, have entirely destroyed a great 

 number of the annual grasses and plants which formerly flourished in this coun 

 try. Several persons told Kalm, so far back as 1748, that the loss of many odo- 

 riferous plants, with which the woods were filled at the arrival of the europeans, 

 but which the cattle have now extirpated, might be looked upon as a cause of the 

 greater progress of the fever ; for that the great number of those strong plant? 

 occasioned a pleasant scent to rise, in the woods every morning, and evening. 

 The vegetable kingdom of our western country is uncommonly rich, and luxuri- 

 antly abundant, because cultivation has been but partially extended to it. Hogs 

 have produced great destruction among all tuberose and bulbous plants. Even 

 the laurel tree of Carolina has become almost extinct in many parts of the coun- 

 try, owing to the depredations of domesticated animals. 



Although some plants, like some animals, are no longer seen in our country, 

 yet the field of botanical inTestigation is immeasurable and boundless. Our 

 country embraces every variety of soil and climate, mountains, rivers, lake?, 

 and salt waters, and is the favourite depository of the vegetable riches of the 

 earth. In the United States, we are yet in the infancy of this science. 



The first edition of Linnseus's Species Plantarum contains only 7,300 species. 

 A curious amateur of botany took the pains to enumerate the plants described 

 in dr. Turton's translation of Gmelin's edition of the Systema Naturae, and in a 

 work of Willdenow, and found 2,046 genera, and 19,803 species of plants, of 

 which 638 genera have but one species j 263 but two ; 174 but three ; and 124 

 but four. And it is supposed, that the whole number of described plants amount? 

 to about 22,000. 



Mr. Jacob Green has annexed to his well-written and interesting Address ou 

 the Botany of the United States, (delivered before the Society for the promo- 

 tion of Useful A-. ts,) a Catalogue of plants, indigenous to the state of New- 

 York. This list, which mr. Green admits to be incomplete, contains about 403 

 genera, and 1,283 species. 



The catalogue of the hitherto known native* and naturalized plants of North 

 America, made by that indefatigable and learned botanist dr. Muhlenberg, con- 

 tains but 863 genera, and not 2,800 species. It is not unreasonable to estimate 

 the whole number of plants in the United Stairs, and their territories, at 8,W# 

 and as yet we have not described 3,000 . What an opening does this afford for 

 the operations of scientific inquiry ? no wonder that Linnaeus was so anxiwre to 

 visit this country. Catesby, in his Hortus Europaj Americanus, published in 

 1767, truly observes, that a small spot of land in America has, within less than 

 half a century, furnished England with a greater variety of trees, than has 

 been procured from all fhe other parts of the world, for more than a thousand 



