9 6 
The Australasian Scientific Magazine. 
[Oct. i, 1885. 
BOTANY-THE OLD AND THE NEW. 
BY 
R. L. 
A love for natural woodland scenery lies deep in the English heart. We 
may for certain purposes copy the terraced gardens of Italy, the trim 
neatness of French parks, or the quaint pattern-clipping of the Dutch ; but 
the untended forest glade, with its wealth of varied foliage in tree and 
underwood, creeper and herb, gives a fuller pleasure. The most widely 
prized descriptive writing in English national literature is that which recalls 
the varied hues, the changing lights, and the movements of foliage swayed by 
the wind. Possibly our forefathers may have enjoyed the pleasures even 
more keenly than we do ; they were more constantly among them, and by 
habit learned to notice more closely than we do. But, though in our 
towns and small gardens we now imitate geometrical carpet patterns in our 
flower beds because they bring the greatest variety of colouring into a small 
space, and relieve our main thoroughfares with lines of trees lopped to 
such uniformity as can be commanded, we still are glad when we can get 
out among woods with minds at leisure to enjoy them. It is the fashion 
nowaday to analyse our likes and dislikes, and we are not satisfied unless 
we can express the influences that affect us as do certain groups of sound 
waves, light waves, and so on, acting through certain nerves on particular 
parts of the brain. But who can analyse the complex pleasure of a day in 
the woods ; and, when out, who cares to try ? To stop to think how we 
are being influenced would draw away attention from beauties around us. 
It is sufficient that there is the feeling of enjoyment. Questions as to how 
and why we enjoy anything are intellectual occupations for the study, but 
when there is opportunity to “ drink in” nature without any mental effort 
it is a delight not to be interfered with. 
The enjoyment of nature as she appears and the pleasure of finding out 
how nature works are very different. It was only in the middle of the 
seventeenth century that people began to pull trees and plants to pieces to 
see how they were made. Nehemiah Crew’s celebrated “Anatomy of “Vege- 
tables” was about the first work on the subject published, and the first series 
of drawings of microscopic sections of wood and seeds appeared in the trans- 
actions of the Royal Society of Great Britain during the years which closed 
the century. In the second half of the next century there w'as great activity 
in examining and grouping plants according to the system laid down by 
Linnaeus, and at the end of the century the chemistry of the food of plants 
began, through Ingenhousz and others, to engage attention. And now, 
