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inclemencies of weather and adorns our persons. Man, 

 in his true stale of nature, seems to be subsisted by 

 spontaneous vegetation : in middle climes, where grasses 

 prevail, he mixes some animal food with the produce of 

 the field and garden : and it is towards the polar extremes 

 only that, like his kindred bears and wolves, he gorges 

 himself with flesh alone, and is driven, to what hunger 

 has never been known to compel the very beasts, to prey 

 on his own species.* 



The productions of vegetation have had a vast influence 

 on the commerce of nations, and have been the great 

 promoters of navigation, as may be seen in the articles of 

 sugar, tea, tobacco, opium, ginseng, betel, paper, etc. 

 As every climate has its peculiar produce, our natural 

 wants bring on a mutual intercourse ; . so that by means 

 of trade each distant part is supplied with the growth 

 of every latitude. But, without the knowledge of plants 

 and their culture, we must have been content with our 

 hips and haws, without enjoying the delicate fruits of 

 India and the salutiferous drugs of Peru. 



Instead of examining the minute distinctions of every 

 various species of each obscure genus, the botanist should 

 endeavour to make himself acquainted with those that 

 are useful. You shall see a man readily ascertain every 

 herb of the field, yet hardly know wheat from barley, or 

 at least one sort of wheat or barley from another. 



But of all sorts of vegetation the grasses seem to be 

 most neglected ; neither the farmer nor the grazier seem 

 to distinguish the annual from the perennial, the hardy 

 from the tender, nor the succulent and nutritive from the 

 dry and juiceless. 



The study of grasses would be of great consequence to 

 a northerly, and grazing kingdom. The botanist that 



♦ See the late Voyages to the South-seem. 

 55— H 



