CHAP. I.] DISAPPOINTMENTS. 227 



bles ; plentiful, grateful, and luxurious fruits ; forms of 

 delicate and fragile beauty to decorate the mansions of 

 the wealthy patrons of the science ; continual additions 

 to our woods, our shrubberies, our hothouses, our cottage 

 gardens : nay, by the sanative force of herbs, even dis- 

 ease has been arrested, the irritation of incipient in- 

 sanity allayed, fever mitigated in short, life prolonged 

 and made more comfortable during its prolongation. 

 What, meanwhile, have Ornithology and Zoology effected 

 to increase our useful store, for the last three hundred 

 years ? We do not say, nothing ; but we dare not say, 

 much more than nothing. 



After a very few years', perhaps months' observation, 

 horticulturists will undertake to pronounce whether a 

 new plant be suited or unsuited to exposure in this 

 climate, and what is the best mode of turning it to the 

 greatest use or ornament, under either condition ; and 

 if it cannot be turned to any use, but can be kept for 

 its showy appearance merely, will soon tell us that it is 

 useless, except as a specimen, why it is so, and how it 

 may best be retained in health and beauty. But Orni- 

 thology and Zoology have imparted little practical know- 

 ledge respecting those creatures about which the poul- 

 try-maid, the shepherd, and the herdsman, could not 

 already give us information. Even Agriculture, which 

 requires so heavy a ballast of capital to carry her along 

 steadily on her way even Agriculture has introduced 

 Turnips, Swedes, Mangold-wurtzel, and other additional 

 crops, within the memory of our fathers and grand- 

 fathers ; but Ornithology does not to this day publicly 

 decide, in print at least, whether birds, like those now 

 under consideration, promising truly or falsely to be as 

 valuable as Turkeys and Guinea-fowls, and which have 



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