BOTANIC GARDENS. 



169 



beauty should be aimed at, but that it should be 

 elaborated and kept up with a rigid and pervading neat- 

 ness. 



Sect. III. — Botanic Gardens. 



} Botanic Gardens, both in their present dedication to 

 scientific purposes, and in the economical uses to which 

 they are probably destined to be applied, may be regarded 

 as among the most important public gardens in this 

 country. They are intended, primarily, to contain 

 general collections of plants, both native and exotic, 

 both hardy and requiring protection, and particularly 

 those species which, from their possessing moderate 

 ornamental qualities, are not likely to be cultivated in 

 common gardens. In the neighbourhood of medical 

 schools they are of great utility, as presenting systematic 

 arrangements, in a lining state, of the plants employed 

 in materia medica. They are also likely to become 

 highly beneficial by forming collections of vegetable 

 substances adapted for food, and used in the arts and 

 manufactures, though this is a purpose to which they 

 are only beginning to be applied. On these grounds, 

 botanic gardens can meet the demands of the most rigid 

 utilitarian. To persons of a scientific turn of mind, and of 

 refined miderstanding, they possess a very high interest. 

 They have done much to feed mth oil the lamp of 

 botany, which dming the last century has burned so 

 brightly, and has shed so brilliant light on the science 

 of method, as applicable to the natural sciences in gene- 

 ral. They have stimulated the search for plants abroad, 

 and promoted their diffusion at home ; and they have 



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