No. 151.] 231 



brated as seminaries of instruction in most of the branches of natural 

 history, and have been also eminently beneficial to the agricultural 

 and mechanical laborer, and to the commercial consequence of those 

 powerlul nations. In order to make them increasingly useful to 

 commerce, science, and the arts, intelligent naturalists have been 

 sent out in the public ships for the express purpose of collecting 

 from every country, plants and seeds that might be advantageously 

 introduced into the field or garden culture of any part of their do- 

 minions. The British government, aware of the importance of many 

 new products to the agricultural interests of the country, have for 

 many years given standing orders to its consuls throughout the 

 world, to send home all the plants and seeds, that may in the most 

 distant degree promise to benefit the landed interest of their coun- 

 try. In that country legislative effort has been ably seconded by in- 

 <lividual enterprise and interest. The nobles and intelligent common- 

 ers, residin • in the country upon their ancestral estates, have either 

 individually, or as members of botanical, horticultural or agricultu- 

 ral societies, founded experimental gardens throughout England, 

 Scotland and Ireland, for the laudab'e purpose of increasing the num- 

 ber, variety, value and beauty of their vegetable productions. So 

 successful have been their commendable exertions, that plantations 

 now exist in the vicinity of London as well as in Paris, whence are 

 disseminated an infinite variety of valuable and ornamental trees and 

 plants, collected from every soil and climate of the earth. 



If then Englaiid and other European powers are so eminently alive 

 to the benefit likely to occur from the introduction of foreign trees 

 and plants, to their comparatively limited territories, how vast in- 

 deed would be the advantage of such establishments in the United 

 States, where is to be found every variety of climate and soil, from 

 Cape Cod to the Pacific, and from the orange groves of Florida to 

 the frozen borders of Lake Superior? 



•By thus testing the character and hardihood of staple foreign pro- 

 ducts, the' culture of some plant may possibly be introduced, whose 

 product will be as valuable to our national industry as olives to the 

 South of Europe, as coffee and indigo to the tropics, or as cotton 

 to our own country. 



The trees and plants of America are so highly appreciated in Eu- 

 rope, that no difficulty would be experienced in establishing a system 

 of exchanges with their experimental gardens. 



