' mmmamM. Kiitif 



AND 



HORTICULTURE JOtlMl, 



A MAGAZINE OF 



Horticulture, Botany, Agriculture, and the Kindred Sciences. 



Conducted by a Committee of Practical Gardeners. R . ROBINSON SCOTT, Editor, No. 48 

 S. Third Street, above the Girard Bank, up stairs. 



Vol. I.] Philadelphia, May, 1852. [No. 1. 



NATURAL SYSTEM OF BOTANY: 



ITS SUPERIORITY. 

 Read at the Stated Meeting of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, March 16. 



The legitimate duty of any society being to take advantage of all 

 plans whereby the objects for which it has been founded may be aid- 

 ed or facilitated, I have taken the liberty to offer a few suggestive 

 remarks on the superiority of the natural system of classification in the 

 vegetable kingdom over the Linnsan or artificial. The opinion of 

 most persons is settled upon the matter, who are at all acquainted 

 with Botanical science ; and many who are encouraged to abandon 

 the old landmarks which the great Swede had set up, by men who 

 have tested the efficiency of each, and the high character and novelty 

 of this comparatively modern system — are at a loss to know why the 

 natural systems of Jussieu, or Decasdolle, or Lindley, or Endlicher 

 are so much extolled as an infinitely superior means of acquiring a 

 knowledge of the mass of objects which comprise the vegetable crea- 

 tion — why the efforts and achievements of the venerated Linnseus 

 should be depreciated, or his scheme superseded, and his system which 

 first cast light upon the apparently confused mass of individuals which 

 comprise the Vegetable Kingdom, should, after so much service, be 

 cast aside to give place to what appears an intricate and difficult means 

 of obtaining the necessary information, viz : the technical name of a 

 plant. Could I, a working gardener, "unsifted in such perilous cir- 

 [ cumstance" as the disputes of scientific devotees, who know nothing j 

 r> of nature but from actual contact and observation, aided of course by o 

 £ja little reading and enquiry, could I open up to view the gratification G\ 



