NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 133 



only that, like his kindred bears and wolves, he gorges 

 himself with flesh alone, and is driven, to what hunger 

 has never been known to compel the very beasts, to prey 

 on his own species. 1 



The productions of vegetation have had a vast influence 

 on the commerce of nations, and have been the great 

 promoters of navigation, as may be seen in the articles of 

 sugar, tea, tobacco, opium, ginseng, betel, paper, &c. As 

 every climate has it's 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 dis- 

 tinguish 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 know- 

 ledge ; 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. 



1 See the late Voyages to the south-seas. [G. W.] 



