BOTANY. 217 



LETTER LXX1I. 



TO THE HON. DAINES HARRINGTON. 

 n SELBORNE, June 2, 177& 



been that T/ 7 " "^X* ob J ection *o botany has always 

 is a pursuit that amuses the fancy and exercises 

 lory, without improving the mind, or advancing anv 

 ! knowledge ; and, where the science is carried no farther 

 e systematic classification, the charge is but too true 

 : botanist that is desirous of wiping off this aspersion' 

 odd be by no means content with a list of names , he should 

 -s philosophically, should investigate the laws of 

 ^C ' w e ^ am , in ? th e powers and virtues of efficacious 

 bs should promote their cultivation, and graft the gardener 

 the planter, and the husbandman on the phytologist. Not that 

 fi!?M IS p y w a ? y means , J be throvm aside without system 

 "Nature would be a pathless wilderness but svs- 

 tem should be subservient to, not the main object of, pursuit 



Vegetation is highly worthy of our attention, and ?n tiif 

 is of the utmost consequence to mankind, and productive^ 

 many of the greatest comforts and elegancies of life To 

 plants we owe timber, bread, beer, honey, wine, oil/linen! 

 ton, &c. what not only strengthens our hearts, and exhi- 

 bnte. our spirits, but what secures us from inclemencies of 

 weather, and adorns our persons. Man, in his true state of 

 ature, seems to be subsisted by spontaneous vegetal on fa 

 middle cUmes, where grasses prevail, he mixes some anirna" 

 food with the produce of Ae field and garden ; and it is towards 

 the polar extremes only, that, like his kindred bears and wolveV 

 ie gorges himself with flesh alone, and is driven to what hunger' 



id a vast influence on 



f navigation, as may beTe^a^r^cl^s^S 

 tobacco, opium, ginseng, betel, pepper, &n As ever/chmate 

 has ,ts peculiar produce, our natural wants brin- on a mutuat 

 mtercourse ; so that by means of trade, each distant par L 

 supplied with the growth of every latitude. But, wkhout the 

 knowledge of plants and their culture, we must have been 



* See the late voyages to the South Seas 

 U 



