PREFACE 



To an agricultural people, there can be no subject 

 more important, or really demanding a deeper interest, 

 than Botany. To guide in the management of any 

 business intelligently, we must know the conditions of 

 success. Success may, it is true, come, to a greater or 

 less extent, without such knowledge ; but if so, it comes 

 in spite of our ignorance, and not by our sagacity. 

 This is most emphatically true in regard to agriculture. 

 Living beings, governed by fixed laws, subject to nu- 

 merous and varied influences for good or evil, are the 

 subjects with which the planter has to deal. It would 

 seem self-evident, that he would be greatly aided by 

 understanding their constitution and the conditions of 

 their highest development. Botany proposes to lay the 

 foundation for such knowledge, and to lead to prac- 

 tice of philosophical agriculture. It indicates the con- 

 ditions essential to the growth and perfect development 

 of plants, their food, the means of supplying it, the con- 

 dition in which it must be furnished, and the means 

 best calculated to gain a given result. All this Botany 

 promises to afford, and, rightly pursued, it will accom- 

 plish all it promises. 



No department of nature presents higher claims to 

 our attention than the vegetable kingdom. It yields 

 us the every-day necessaries of life. It affords us the 

 articles indispensable for food, clothing, shelter, and 

 warmth ; and without its constant ministrations, with 



