AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 307 



THE BRITISH MUSEUM, JUNE, 1857. 



Expenses for '57 and '58, $335,000 



Salaries, .- - 150,000 



House expense, 16,000 



Purchases, &c., _ 90,000 



Binding, Cabinets, &c., 65,000 



Catalogues, _ 11 ,000 



... 366,714 



334,089 



459,262 



661,113 



507,9Y3 



(the grand exhibition,). 2,527,216 



Total visitors in '56 



do '55 



do '54 



do '53 



do '52 



do '51 



Highly interesting articles are constantly being added. 

 Last year, 33,769 specimens in zoology. 



do 6,700 do geology and mineralogy. 



do very interesting articles in botany. 



AGRICULTURE, BOTANY, VEGETABLE LIFE. 



Theophrastus, of Athens, about 2,200 years ago, had lived one 

 hundred years, and devoted a great part of his century to prac- 

 tical knowledge of plants. 



He found a plant to be an organized being, of vital powers, 

 " fixed to a peculiar spot, to draw nutrition, propagate and rot." 



He called the bark skin, the sap blood, and the body flesh; he 

 called pollen by its proper name, semen; and the marriage of the 

 male and female plants exact as in locomotive animals, remarking 

 as no botanist has yet remarked, that this semen of plants has the 

 same odor as the animal semen. 



He divided the vegetable kingdom into trees, bushes, plants 

 and herbs. He taught accurately the sexual system in plants. 

 He described the smut and rust in wheat and its causes and 

 remedies and preventions, with an exactness not yet excelled, 

 notwithstanding the vast aid of our modern microscopic power. 

 He proved the true movement of the sap — understood and suc- 

 cessfully practiced grafting and budding. He pointed out the 

 various uses of the vegetable world, besides their part as food for 



