vi PEEFACE. 



elation of what cannot be done is obtained, as 

 thereby labour on a sterile soil will be avoided, to 

 be applied with more reasonable hope of success 

 elsewhere. 



In the following pages an attempt has, therefore, 

 been made to supply a sketch, necessarily in faintest 

 outline, of the physiology or life-history of plants; of 

 the way in which they are affected by the circunv 

 stances under which they exist, and of the manner in 

 which they in their turn react upon other living 

 beings and upon natural forces. Of necessity, there 

 has been a little overlapping in the case of some 

 of the subjects treated of io the companion volume, 

 " The Chemistry of the Farm/' by Mr. Warington ; 

 but as the matters are looked at from a different 

 stand-point, and as no pretence is here made to im- 

 part special chemical knowledge, it is hoped that 

 Mr. Warington and the reader also will forgive any 

 slight incursions into a territory which the writer 

 has no claim to enter except upon sufferance. 



Structural botany, whether dealing with the outer 

 conformation or the internal organisation of plants, 

 is only incidentally treated of in these pages ; the 

 classification of plants is also passed over without 

 notice, as not coming within the scope of this Hand- 

 book. Information of an elementary character on 



