143 



VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



THE riches of the Museum relative to botany 

 consist, 



1st. Of living vegetables cultivated in the garden, 



2dly. Of a collection of dried plants or herbals,, 

 and all the products of the vegetable kingdom, 

 which it is possible to preserve and make known. 



The collection of a great number of foreign 

 plants ought not to be considered as an object of 

 luxury or curiosity. It is useful to the progress of 

 science. Travellers have neither the time or facility 

 of describing and drawing remarkable plants in the 

 places where they gather them. It is only when 

 they are cultivated in our gardens, that they can 

 study them in all the periods of their vegetation* 

 draw them when they are in flower, and try to 

 multiply them, if their culture promises any advan- 

 tages. We must not forget, that several foreign 

 plants, which are now spread in other parts, 

 were first cultivated in the Jardin du Roi. Every 

 one knows that the coffee, which now grows in 

 the islands of America, proceeded from a plant 

 raised in our green-houses ; and, still more lately, 

 the bread-fruit tree has been sent from our green- 

 houses to Cayenne. We must add to this, that in 

 the Jardin du Roi, a multitude of slips and seeds 



