VI 



PEEFACE. 



in able hands^ and will, doubtless, be completed in a manner 

 worthy of the author. 



Vegetable products constitute nine-twelfths of the whole 

 commerce in raw produce which employs the vast jnercan- 

 tile marine of this great kingdom. They furnish us with 

 the bulk of our food and clothing, our medicine and our 

 building materials, and with many other necessaries and 

 luxuries. It may be argued, that most of the benefits we 

 derive from the vegetable kingdom have been discovered 

 without the aid of science. True, but is not this a great 

 and powerful argument in favour of the application of 

 scientific investigation in this department ? for if so much 

 has been done without its aid, how much may we not hope 

 will be effected when the principles of scientific research, 

 which have effected such miracles in every other depart- 

 ment, are brought to bear upon that of Economic Botany ? 



Had not a scientific and practical botanist discovered the 

 Gutta Percha, how many benefits would perhaps have been 

 lost to civilization (unless some other article supplied its 

 place in the submarine telegraphs) ; and, latterly, the inves- 



