342 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. 



use in our navy-yards. It yields the largest and strongest 

 spars of any known tree. 



There is no branch of Economic Botany requiring the in- 

 vestigation of men of science more than the history of 

 Timber-trees ; it is lamentable to see talented botanists la- 

 bouring over the definition of some species or variety, pos- 

 sessing no other interest than the technical difficulties of its 

 characters, whilst we are totally ignorant of even the names 

 of the plants producing two-thirds of our most valuable 

 timber and furniture woods. This circumstance also offers 

 an argument to those non-scientific persons who cavil at 

 the technicology of science, and would have common ver- 

 nacular names applied to all things j for amongst the woods 

 of commerce this practice has prevailed, and has produced 

 sucli a mass of errors, that it appears almost hopeless to 

 expect to unravel them. Tor instance, we have a dozen 

 different varieties called Iron-wood; half-a-dozen Beef- 

 woods; four or five Satin-woods; and a host of others, 

 named according to the fancy of the wood-cutters, shippers, 



