OF ARKANSAS. 345 



would be to direct every botanical surveyor to collect at least twenty-five 

 specimens of each interesting species. With these specimens a number 

 of collections could be formed and deposited either in normal schools or 

 in the academies of the State or in public libraries, in places accessible to 

 teachers. By examining the plants and reading labels bearing the names, 

 habitat, and property of each species, the teacher would be able to know, in 

 a short time, the valuable plants, and to make them known to his pupils. 



It is customary to judge everything from the amount of money that it 

 costs and that it brings. In cases like this, knowledge is equivalent to an 

 unappreciable amount of money. If we could compute the sum that is 

 paid every year by the population of a State like Arkansas for useless, 

 dangerous, poisonous drugs, sold everywhere as popular medicines, — drugs 

 which have taken the hard earnings of the poor, destroyed the health of 

 many, killed thousands of people, and cured nobody, — how enormous 

 this sum would appear ! Nobody complains, nevertheless. But when 

 scientific researches introduced among the population can give to every 

 one simple directions for the preservation of health, and indicate valu- 

 able medicines for cases of sickness, how many there are who, looking to 

 the cost only, consider these researches as useless and too expensive. 

 Acquaintance with the plants and their properties is advantageous to 

 every one ; but becomes a necessity for the inhabitants of the country, 

 where cattle, negroes and children are exposed to die without any rational 

 assistance, when the means of saving them are just at hand, contained in 

 some unknown plant. 



