TO BOTANY. 177 



class, and compare his flower therewith : a frequent 

 practice of this will soon make hi 1 ^ retain the names 

 of the classes, and their several distinctions. 



When he has arrived thus far, he may begin to 

 try his strength, by deciding always first himself 

 upon the class, before he turns to the book ; and he 

 will be now qualified to begin the study of the or- 

 ders ; which he may pursue after the same method 

 as he did the classes, finding the orders first out by 

 the tables, reading their characters, and comparing 

 them with the flower, till he has gained a clear no- 

 tion of their several distinctions ; after which, he 

 should in like ihanner attempt to declare the order 

 himself. 



The subdivisions also of \ the orders, though they 

 are not made part of the systematic distribution of 

 vegetables, yet' are well worth his attention; as in 

 some of the extensive orders it would be more 

 troublesome to detect the genus of any flower, if the 

 genera contained in the order \ ere parcelled out 

 under such convenient distinctions. By these divi- 

 sions, the reader will be led to decide on any plant 

 within a very few genera. And here we must take 

 leave of him, and refer the rest of the work to his 

 own industry ; for though we have laid down the 

 principles of both generic and specific distinctions, 

 the former, in the second, and the latter, in the third 

 part of this work, yet it was impossible to include 

 even the characters of the genera in a work of this 

 compass, much less to have entered upon an enu- 

 meration or description of the several species. 



