superficial observers, finding it so much easier to adopt, than to vciify the- 

 crude notions of the vulgar, have actually supposed several species U» be con- 

 tinually, and reciprocally, changing into each other!* It is to be hoped, 

 however, that our ingenuous youths will yet learn to discriminate between 

 truth and error, in the objects around them ; and not be content — as a, 

 popular writer expresses it — "to wander among the productions of Na- 

 ture with little more perception, or enjoyment of her charms, than a cow 

 on a common, or a goose on a green." In this hope, and under this im- 

 pression it was, th it I thought a rapid sketch of so important a tribe of 

 the vegetable creation might be found in some degree interesting. 



The whole number of flowering Plants, already known to the Botan- 

 ists, has been estimated at about forty thousand species, — of which it 

 is supposed the Grasses constitute one twentieth part : but if we take 

 into the account, the immense number of individuals of many species, 

 the proportion of Grasses, to vegetation in general, will be greatly in- 

 creased. The known Grasses of Chester County — native, naturalized, 

 and cultivated — amount to about one hundred species ,- or one-tenth of 

 the whole number of flowering plants, inhabiting the same district. A 

 large portion, indeed, of this vast Family, is not known to possess any 



*It is a curious circumstance, in the history of this vulgar error, that, in 

 former limes, when the occult sciences flourished, the peasantry of Eu- 

 rope imagineJ alt our cultivated small grains to be subject to this kind of 

 transmutation: — that Wheat was often changed, first into Rye, then in- 

 to Barley, from Barley to Ray Grass, or LoLiuM.fiomLolium to Bkom- 

 us, or Cheat, and finally, (rom Bromus to Oats! They supposed, moreo- 

 ver, that by the agency of a fertile soil, the degenerate grass could be 

 gradually restored to its original form ; or at least, that it could be brought 

 back as far as Rye ! — " Veteres crpdebant frumentum per gradus degen- 

 erare in macriori terra, atque Triticum in Secalk, Irfecale in Hordeum, 

 Hordeum in Bromum, Bromum in Avenam et sic per gradus descendere, 

 immo credebant etiam semina Bromi vel flordci in ferUliori terra produ- 

 cere Secale."-- -- Cakoli a Linne, Amcenitates Academics, Tom. 5.— - 

 Even in our own enlightened age and country, as we are wont to phrase 

 it— there are yet many persons strongly tinctured with the notion, thai 

 Wheat is frequently transmuted into Bromus, qv Cheat ; — though I have 

 not met with any so full in the faith, as to believe they can bring the de- 

 generate offspring back again to its pristine state. It is remarkable, also, 

 that this obsolete notion — so entirely exploded among scientific Natural- 

 ists — has lately found an advocate in a gentleman of some pretensions, 

 as a Geologist, — and who has, more recently, acquired considerable no- 

 toriety, by his researches concerning territorial limits : I mean Mr. 

 Feateerstoxehacgh. As that gentleman has been so astute in detects 

 ing the muta'HIity of the Laws of Nature, — we ough: not, perhaps, to 

 bo surprised at his discovery of the extraordinary mutation in our North- 

 eastern Boundary, since it was established by the fathers of the Repub- 

 lic '. Itisquite as likely that landmarks should change their locality, as 

 that objects of Natural History should lose the distinctive characters im- 

 pressed on them by the hand of the Creator, 



