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INTRODUCTION. 



Is amusement our pursuit ? Botany affords it in every step 

 of our progress. The love of flowers appears to be implanted 

 in our very nature. *' They seem," as Rousseau says, " to 

 grow beneath our feet, as if to invite us to their contemplation. " 

 They are indeed scattered around us, to be seen by every eye, 

 and gathered by every hand. The tottering infant plucks the 

 little gold-eyed Daisy the child is seen with his pinafore filled 

 with Butter-cups the lover sends Roses to his mistress the 

 nobleman has his gay parterre the cottager his little flower 

 garden the denizen of the city fills his apartments with his 

 favorite plants and even the humble occupant of a garret 

 decorates his only window with some one of these simple 

 beauties of nature. It is true that he may know nothing of 

 flowers, but their beauty and their fragrance ; and yet admire 

 them. How much more so the botanist, who, knowing that 

 the smallest weeds are not beneath his care, examines their 

 structure, learns the uses to which they are and may be ap- 

 plied, the country, situation, and soil, where they naturally 

 grow, their connection with others in the great scale of nature, 

 and the poetical images connected with them. By a study like 

 this, not only his mind imbibes the most valuable information, 

 but is soothed with pleasing and beautiful associations. For 



there are 



41 Token flowers that tell, 



What words can never speak so well !" 



Botany has advantages on many other accounts. Rambling 

 over the fields, in the necessary search for the little gems that 

 grow there, tranquillizes the feelings, and invigorates the health 

 both of body and mind ; while the examination of the plants 

 thus collected tends much to quicken the faculties, improve 

 the memory, induce habits of order and neatness, and above 

 all it leads the mind to contemplate that Great Being who 

 fashioned, aud who spreads over the whole earth these ever- 

 varying and splendid objects of His power and His goodness. 



