128 SCIENCE OF GARDENING. PART II. 



SECT. VII. Of Methods of Study. 



582. There are two methods of acquiring botanical knoivledge, analogous to those by which 

 languages are acquired. The first is the natural method, which begins with the great and 

 obvious classes of vegetables, and distinguishes trees, grasses, &c. ; next individuals among 

 these ; and afterwards their parts or organs. This knowledge is acquired insensibly, as 

 one acquires 1 is mother-tongue. The second is the artificial method, and begins with 

 the parts of plants, as the leaves, roots, &c., ascending to nomenclature and classification, 

 and is acquired by particular study, aided by books or instructors, as one acquires a dead 

 or foreign language. This method is the fittest for such as wish to attain a thorough 

 knowledge of plants, so as to be able to describe them ; the other mode is easier, and the 

 best suited for cultivators, whose object does not go beyond that of understanding their 

 descriptions, and studying their physiology, history, and application. 



An easy and expeditious mode for gardeners to know plants and study the vegetable kingdom is as 

 follows : 



Begin by acquiring the names of a great number of individuals. Supposing the plants growing in a 

 named collection, or that you have any person to tell you their names : then take any old book, and begin 

 at any point (in preference the beginning) of the collection, border, or field, and taking a leaf from the 

 plant whose name you wish to know, put it between the two first leaves of the book, writing the name 

 witli a pencil, if you are gathering from a named collection, or if not, merely write a number, and get the 

 name inserted by your instructor afterwards. * Gather, say a dozen the first clay, carry the book in your 

 pocket, and fix these names in your memory, associated with the form and color of the leaves, by 

 repeatedly turning to them during the moments of leisure of one dav. Then, the second day, proceed to 

 the plants, and endeavour to apply the names to the entire plant. To assist you, take them in the order 

 in which you gathered them, and refer to the book when your memory fails. To aid hi recollecting the 

 botanic names, endeavour, after you have gathered the leaves, either by books or your instructor, to learn 

 the etymology of the name, and something of the history of the plant, &c. Attach the leaves by two 

 transverse cuts in the paper, or by any simple process, so as the first set may not fall out' when you are 

 collecting a second. Having fixed the first fasciculus in your memory, form a second, which you may in- 

 crease according to your capacity of remembering. Proceed as before during the second day; and the 

 beginning of the third day, begin at your first station, and recall to memory the names acquired during 

 both the first and second day. In this way go on till you have acquired the names of the great majority 

 of the plants in the garden or neighbourhood where you are situated. Nothing is more easily remembered 

 than a word when it is associated with some visible object, such as a leaf or a plant ; and the more names 

 of plants we know, the more easy does it become to add to our stock of them. A person who knows only 

 ten plants will require a greater effort of memory to recollect two more, than one who knows a thousand 

 will to remember an additional two hundred. That gardener must have little desire to learn who cannot, 

 in two or three weeks, acquire the names of a thousand plants, if already arranged. If to be collected in 

 the fields, it is not easy getting a thousand leaves or specimens together ; but, in general, every gardener 

 requires to charge his memory with the names and ideas or images, of between five hundred and one 

 thousand plants ; as being those in general cultivation as agricultural plants, forest-trees, and field-shrubs, 

 horticultural plants, plants of ornament, and those requiring eradication as weeds. 



To acquire the glossology, cut a leaf or other part from the plants indicated in any elementary work 

 on botany which you may possess, as affording examples of each term. You will not be able to get at all 

 the examples ; but if you get at one tenth of them, it will prepare you for the next step, which is 



To acquire a knowledge of the classes and orders. This is easily done by selecting the blossoms of 

 plants, whose class, &c. is designated in a catalogue. Begin with class 1, order 1. On looking at any pro- 

 per catalogue, such as Sweet's or Donn's, you will find that there are but few plants in this class, and only 

 one British example which flowers in May. Unless you take that month, therefore, or enjoy the advan- 

 tages of inspecting hot-house plants, you can do nothing with this class. Proceed to the next order, and so 

 on, examining as many flowers as possible in each class and order, in connection with the descriptions, as 

 given in your elementary guide, in order that you may be perfectly familiarised with all the classes, and 

 the whole or the greater number of the orders. 



Study the descriptions of plants, with the plants before you. For this purpose, procure any good Species 

 Plantarum or Flora, in Latin, if you know a little of that language, as the Hortus Kcwensis, Smith's Flora 

 Britannica ; or in English, as Withering's Arrangement of British Plants, Murray's British Flora, or 

 Miller's Dictionary, in which last are short descriptions both in English and Latin. Persevere in this 

 practice, collecting an herbarium, and writing the complete description of each specimen under it, till all 

 the parts of plants are familiar to you. When that is the case, you will be able, on a plant's being presented 

 to you which you never saw before, to discover (that is, if it be in flower) first its class and order, and next, 

 by the aid of proper books, its generic and specific name j and this, as far as respects the names of plants, 

 is to attain the object in view. 



But to k?iow the name of an object is not to know its nature ; therefore having stored up a great many 

 names in your memory, and become familiarised with the plants by which you are surrounded, and with 

 the art of discovering'the names of such as may be brought to you, by the Linnzean method ; the next 

 thing is to study plants according to their natural affinities, by referring them to their natural orders, and 

 observing the properties common to each order. Then proceed to study their anatomy, chemistry, and 

 physiology ; and lastly, their history and application. For these purposes Smith's Introduction to Botany, 

 Keith's Vegetable Physiology, and Willdenow's Specks Plantarum, may be reckoned standard works. 

 Books of figures, such as Sowerby's Exotic and English Botany, or Curtis's Magazine, are eminently useful 

 for the first department, but they can only come into the hands of a few. Those who understand French 

 will find the elementary works of Decandolle, Richard, and Girardin, of a superior description. The 

 Elements of Decandolle and Sprengel, lately translated, is also a valuable work. 



CHAP. IV. 



Taxonomy, or the Classification cf Plants. 



583. Without some arrangement, the mind of man would be unequal to the task of ac- 

 quiring even an imperfect knowledge of the various objects of nature. Accordingly, in 

 every science, attempts have been made to classify the different objects that it embraces, 

 and these attempts have been founded on various principles. Some have adopted arti- 



