224 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



ginseng, betel, paper, &c. As every climate has its peculiar produce, 

 our natural wants bring on a mutual intercourse ; so that by means 

 of trade each distant part is supplied with the growth of every 

 latitude. But, without the knowledge of plants and their culture, 

 we must have been content with our hips and haws, without 

 enjoying the delicate fruits of India and the salutiferous drugs of 

 Peru. 



Instead of examining the minute distinctions of every various 

 species of each obscure genus, the botanist should endeavour to 

 make himself acquainted with those that are useful. You shall see 

 a man readily ascertain every herb of the field, yet hardly know 

 wheat from barley, or at least one sort of wheat or barley from 

 another. 



But of all sorts of vegetation the grasses seem to be most 

 neglected ; neither the farmer nor the grazier seem to distinguish 

 the annual from the perennial, the hardy from the tender, nor the 

 succulent and nutritive from the dry and juiceless. 



The study of grasses would be of great consequence to a 

 northerly, and grazing kingdom. The botanist that could improve 

 the sward of the district where he lived would be an useful member 

 of society : to raise a thick turf on a naked soil would be worth 

 volumes of systematic knowledge ; and he would be the best 

 commonwealth's man that could occasion the growth of " two 

 blades of grass where one alone was seen before." 



I am, &c. 



