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LXXXVII. Description of a Method of Numbering Marks 

 or Tallies for Plants. In a Letter to the Secretary. By 

 Alexander Seton, Esq. F. H. S. fyc. 



Read April 1, 1817. 



My Dear Sir, 



According to your wish, I will describe the method of 

 numbering marks or tallies for plants, which have been used, 

 for many years, by my lamented brother, Mr. George 

 Anderson, and myself, and in which we have found the 

 greatest convenience, both in regard to readiness in ap- 

 plication, and ease and perspicuity in reference. If you 

 lay this communication before the Horticultural Society, I 

 fear it may be deemed of but trivial importance ; but it may 

 be observed, that all the arts derive their improvement 

 chiefly from the facilities, afforded by a number of minor 

 inventions, which seem simple, when put in practice, while 

 we then wonder at the tardiness of their introduction. Of 

 this there is nothing that furnishes a more striking example, 

 than the Arabian arrangement of numbers, without which 

 it would be difficult for us now to conceive, how our arith- 

 metical computations could be accomplished; and yet it 

 was unknown to those highly civilized nations of antiquity, 

 from whom Europe has derived the basis of those sciences, 

 which form the chief cause of its being now so eminently 

 exalted, in power and dignity, over the rest of the world. 

 The little device, of which I am now treating, consists merely 

 of the application of this method of numeration, by means 



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