42 LAWS OP NOMENCLATURE. 



The word has not, it is true, in Latin, the precise sense 

 that we propose to give it, but the same may be said of 

 genus and species. It is a necessity in science to limit the 

 sense of Latin words, in order to render ideas clearer and 

 more precise. 



14. When botanists give their attention to cultivated 

 species, they find no difficulty in designating certain 

 leading forms as races or sub-species, and others less 

 important as varieties or sub -varieties. As a case of this 

 we may mention the paper on Brassica, by De CandoUfe 

 (Trans, of the Hort. Soc, vol. v.), rewarded, in 1821, by 

 the Horticultural Society of London, and recapitulated, 

 under a strictly botanical form, in the ' Systema,' vol. ii., 

 p. 583. In this work races are named in Latin stirps, 

 but the word proles appears to us better to indicate 

 propagation by heredity. It conforms itself likewise more 

 readily to the addition of sub, which has the advantage of 

 designatiug a sub-race. 



Another very remarkable work is that on wheats, by Louis 

 Vilmorin (' Essai d'un Catalogue des Froments,'' pamphlet, 

 8vo, 1850.) Its value as to essential points is evident; but 

 the author has designated the principal forms of Triticum 

 vulgare, first by the term varieties, and then by that of sec- 

 tions. Would it not have been better to call these essen- 

 tially hereditary forms races and subraees, the word section 

 having already another signification in botanical works ? 



The important work of Dochmal on fruit-trees^ offers a still 

 stronger example of this kind of mistake. Genera are there 

 divided into tribes, and species into genera. What would 

 be said of an army having its cpmpanies divided into regi- 

 ments or battalions ? or of a country, if certain parishes 

 were to think proper to divide themselves into provinces or 

 counties ? of a town if its streets were to be called quarters ? 



Matters would evidently be improved were agriculturists 

 and horticulturists to adopt the terms used in botany for the 



1 ' Der sichere FiiKrer in d. Obstkunde,' 4 vols. 8ro. Nuremberg, 

 1855-60. See vol. iv. p. 201, 213, etc. 



