222 NATURAL HISTORY OF 8ELBORNE. 



Instead of examining the minute distinctions of every 

 various species of each obscure genus, the botanist should 

 endeavour to make himself acquainted with those that are 

 useful. You shall see a man readily ascertain every herb 

 of the field, yet hardly know wheat from barley, or at least 

 one sort of wheat or barley from another. 



But of all sorts of vegetation the grasses seem to be most 

 neglected ; neither the farmer nor the grazier seem to 

 distinguish the annual from the perennial, the hardy from 

 the tender, nor the succulent and nutritive from the dry 

 and juiceless. 



The study of grasses would be of great consequence to a 

 northerly and grazing kingdom. The botanist that could 

 improve the sward of the district where he lived would be 

 an useful member of society : to raise a thick turf on a 

 naked soil would be worth volumes of systematic knowledge ; 

 and he would be the best commonwealth's man that could 

 occasion the growth of " two blades of grass where one 

 alone was seen before." 



LETTER XLI. 



SELBORNE, July 3rd, 1778. 



IN a district so diversified with such a variety of hill and 

 dale, aspects, and soils, it is no wonder that great choice of 

 plants should be found. Chalks, clays, sands, sheep-walks 

 and downs, bogs, heaths, woodlands, and champaign fields 

 cannot but furnish an ample Flora. The deep rocky lanes 

 abound with filices^ and the pastures and moist woods with 



