INTRODUCTION, 13 



granaries were supplied.* Many plants known to the 

 ancients were, however, lost sight of during mediaeval 

 times, though to the scientific ardour of the Moors 

 and the careful leech-craft of the monastic orders we 

 probably owe our knowledge of many new uses of 

 plants. But these accretions to our powers of utilizing 

 natural products were vastly eclipsed by the novelties 

 that resulted from the voyages of discovery during 

 the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 



Even after these, a complete enumeration of all the 

 plants economically applied in England, or in Europe 

 generally, at the beginning of the present century, 

 would represent but a small proportion of those now 

 more or less in use, to so great an extent has the 

 vegetable world been ransacked in search of new raw 

 materials during the last half-century. After fifty 

 years of a reign of prosperity, it is natural to look 

 back and contrast our knowledge at the beginning of 

 that period with that of the present day. 



II. THE PROGRESS OF ECONOMIC BOTANY IN 

 ENGLAND DURING THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 

 (1837-1887). 



The year 1837 cannot be said to mark a very definite 

 epoch in the history of this steadily continuous pro- 

 gress. The year before, A. B. Lambert had completed 

 the publication of his great work on ' Pinus,' in which 

 David Don (1800-1841) incorporated much of the 

 researches of Coulter ; whilst Darwin, returning in 



* See a paper by the present writer on ' The Influence of Man 

 upon the Flora of Essex, 7 Trans. Essex Field Club, vol. iv., 

 p. 31. 1884. 



