[ 5So ] 



times," with the fole view of determining what' 

 vegetables thefe feveral animals would eat or re- 

 ject. It is eafy to fee that numberlefs difficulties 

 muft arife in the profecution of this fcheme, and 

 that imperfedion, in a variety of inftances, muft at 

 laft attend their greateft accuracy. In the mean 

 time, care was taken, as far as circumttances 

 would admit, that the experiments were made as 

 unexceptionably as poffible ; and it muft be con- 

 cluded, that the refult upon the whole is true, as 

 they have a real foundation in thofe unerring laws 

 of inftin6b, to which nature has fubjedled the whole 

 brute creation. The plants were all frefti gather- 

 ed, not bruifed in colleding, nor offered to the 

 cattle when they were cither almoft famiftied, or 

 glutted with variety nor yet in the fpring-time^ 

 when many of them greedily devour almoft any 

 vegetable they can get, fometimes fuch as are fatal 

 to them, and which at other times they will not 

 touch. The plants were alfo, in many examples, 

 .offered to feveral individuals of the fame fpecies. 



Thefe trials were made only with the indigenous 

 plants of Sweden^ which are (at leaft three fourths) 

 the fame as ours in England, The plants growing 

 fpontaneoufly in Sweden^ exclufive of the molTes 

 and fungufes, amount to about 900 fpecies. Of 

 fuch a number, in every country, many muft ht 

 very rare ; it is not therefore to be expeded that 

 all thefe could be brought to trial. Some, although 

 plentiful in one part of the country, would be 

 very fparingly found in another. From the fefult 

 it appeared, that the horned cattle eat of the plants 

 which were offered to then^^ only 276 fpecies^ and 



