XVI 



NOTHER way to develop a love 

 for Nature is to ask the aid of 

 books. Writers like Thoreau, 

 Jefferies, and Burroughs not 



only paint beautiful pictures for our mental 

 eye, but stimulate our powers of actual ob- 

 servation ; they tell us what they have seen, 

 and thus tell us what to look for in our turn. 

 And artists' biographies are full of hints 

 and guiding-threads, while now and then a 

 painter, like Fromentin, writes descriptions 

 which are as wonderful as Thoreau's and, 

 by their very unlikeness to a naturalist's de- 

 scriptions, greatly assist these in enlarging 

 our appreciative sense. But to enlarge this 

 as widely and as quickly as possible, there is 

 no helper so good as a botanical handbook. 



A singular misunderstanding of the pur- 

 pose and results of botanical study seems to 

 prevail among intelligent Americans. I do 



