gradation and obscurity, in which it has 
been lying for ages, and to restore it to its 
proper place, as at once the most ancient, 
the most useful, and the most pleasing of 
the sciences; a pursuit, the variety of 
which is boundless ; nor can the pleasures 
it is capable of affording to both mind and 
body, ever be calculated. What then can 
be more laudable than to circulate informa- 
tion on such a subject, and above all, to 
procure new plants from distant countries, 
not for the mean, narrow-minded, truly 
contemptible, and worse than barbarous 
of incarcerating them within their 
own walls, till they perish there, but in order 
to diffuse them, so that the whole country, 
and in due time the whole civilized world, 
may be benefited. Surely of sucha society, 
impelled by such motives, no one can refuse 
to say [73 Esto perpetua.” 
