122 FOEEST CtJLTtrRE AND 



of this institution, we might learn by a rapid glance 

 over an area of knowledge singularly wide that only 

 through many successive discourses, explaining sub. 

 jects in detail, the student can become aware of the 

 importance of phytologic knowledge in its relation to 

 the industrial purposes of life. In all zones, except 

 the most icy, mankind depends on plants for its prin- 

 cipal wants. For our sustenance, clothing, dwellings, 

 or utensils ; for our means of transit, whether by sea 

 or land ; indeed, for all our ordinary daily require- 

 ments, we have to draw the material largely, and 

 often solely, from the vegetable world. The resources 

 for all these necessities must be — it cannot be other- 

 wise — manifold in the extreme, and singularly varied, 

 again, in different climatic zones, or under otherwise 

 modified conditions. 



To render, therefore, these vegetable treasures 

 accessible to our fullest benefljb, not only locally, but 

 universally, must ever be an object of the deepest sig- 

 nificance. Increasing requirements of the human 

 races and augmented insight into the gifts of nature 

 render now-a-days quite imperative the closest appli- 

 ances of science to our resources and our daily wants. 



' ' Omnis tellies optima ferat .' " has become the motto 

 of our Acclimatization Society ; or let me quote from 

 Virgil : " Ifon omnis fert omnia tellus, hie segetes, illio 

 veniunt felicitcs uvae." Striving to unite the products 

 of many lands, it suflBlces for us nowhere any longer 

 to discriminate among these resources with merely 

 crude notions ; but it becomes necessary to fix accu- 

 rately, also, as far as plants are concerned, their indus- 

 trial value, trace their origin, test their adaptability, 

 investigate their productiveness, durability, qualities ; 



