498 BOTANY AS APPLIED TO VETERINARY SCIENCE. 
It will be remembered that at the commencement of my 
remarks I proposed to consider the subject under three 
heads ; viz., plants constituting the food of our domesticated 
animals, plants employed as medicines, and poisonous plants. 
Under this arrangement, however, I shall confine my 
remarks to the more important plants in each department, 
giving their botanical characters from our best authors, 
together with any other features which are calculated to be 
of interest to the veterinary surgeon. 
PLANTS CONSTITUTING THE FOOD OF OUR DOMESTICATED 
ANIMALS. 
There is no subject of greater importance at the present 
day than the consideration of the materials used as food for 
our domestic animals. In this department we are fast 
approaching a somewhat artificial age. We have our arti¬ 
ficial foods and our artificial manures, some new discoveries 
of the virtues and value of which are every few months 
brought out in tempting forms, so as to induce the agricul¬ 
turist and others to employ them, without any consideration 
as to the ultimate effects they may produce. These effects, I 
venture to predict, will sooner or later call for the serious 
attention of all parties interested in the well-being of our 
domesticated animals. They may not be noticed at present, 
but the increasing demand for artificial foods, which seems 
to be the fashion of the day, will lead to a departure from 
the natural habits of the animal, and thus be calculated 
eventually to produce disease. Equally important is the 
consideration of the effects produced upon the natural food 
of most of our domesticated animals by the application of 
artificial manures. The science of chemistry has already 
done much for agriculture, but it is yet in its infancy, and in 
no department is its assistance more required than in this; 
still, for a proper application of its laws to the vegetable 
kingdom, botany must also be understood. As well might 
an individual who employs artificial foods for animals be 
supposed to know the effects produced by them upon their 
digestive system, without a knowledge of anatomy and 
physiology, as the agriculturist, however well versed he may 
be in chemistry, can be expected to understand the effects 
produced on plants by artificial substances, without a know¬ 
ledge of their physiology. It is here that great mischief will 
be produced unless carefully guarded against. We have 
now a great variety of manufactured manures, the judicious 
application of which may prove very beneficial; but their 
