LETTER XL 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE,/ 2, 1778. 



DEAR SIR, The standing objection to botany has 

 always been, that it is a pursuit that amuses the fancy 

 and exercises the memory without improving the mind or 

 advancing any real knowledge : and where the science is 

 carried no farther than a mere systematic classification, the 

 charge is but too true. But the botanist that is desirous 

 of wiping off this aspersion should be by no means content 

 with a list of names ; he should study plants philosophi- 

 cally, should investigate the laws of vegetation, should 

 examine the powers and virtues of efficacious herbs, should 

 promote their cultivation, and graft the gardener, the 

 planter, and the husbandman, on the phytologist. Not 

 that system is by any means to be thrown aside ; without 

 system the field of Nature would be a pathless wilderness ; 

 but system should be subservient to, not the main object 

 of, pursuit. 



Vegetation is highly worthy of our attention ; and in 

 itself is of the utmost consequence to mankind, and pro- 

 ductive of many of the greatest comforts and elegancies of 

 life. To plants we owe timber, bread, beer, honey, wine, 

 oil, linen, cotton, &c., what not only strengthens our hearts, 

 and exhilerates our spirits, but what secures us from 

 inclemencies of weather and adorns our persons. Man, 

 in his true state of nature, seems to be subsisted by 

 spontaneous vegetation ; in middle climes, where grasses 

 prevail, he mixes some animal food with the produce of 



the field and garden ; and it is towards the polar extremes 



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