406 
ADVICE TO YOUNG GARDENERS. 
gation of exotics,, and the way in which they may be best brought to 
show their flowers and fruit when desired* 
When the young gardener has acquired as much practical botany as 
serves him for the time being—that is, in whatever situation he may 
chance to be placed—he may then apply himself to the study of sys¬ 
tematic botany. He may first look over the sexual system of Linnaeus, 
so as to obtain a general view of its outline, classes, and orders. A 
good plan for a beginner is to write out a scheme of the system on a 
large sheet of paper, to hang or be fixed up in his room. This may 
exhibit the classes, each followed by the orders, and under or opposite 
each order the name of one well-known plant, which, when com¬ 
pared with the characters of the class and order to which it belongs, 
will be a practical lesson not easily forgotten; and, by gaining thus a 
clear idea of any one class and order, a key to all the rest will be 
obtained. 
When a good idea of the general scope of the Linnsean system has 
been mastered, that of Jussieu may be approached. Here all notion of 
the sexual system must be forgotten. The natural system recognises 
no distinctions founded on the numbers of the parts of a flower, but on 
their positions only. The grand divisions, however, must be first 
attended to; and, as these are founded on the physical differences of 
structure, they require minute investigation. From the grand divi¬ 
sions the student must descend to the subdivisions of each, thence to 
the classes and subclasses, and finally to the orders. 
A tabular scheme of the Jussieuan system, also written out as 
advised above, will be of great use for fixing upon the mind the general 
complexion of this popular system ; but it will require a much greater 
degree of attention and study to comprehend, before the student will 
be able to assign to any strange plant he may meet with its proper 
place in the system. 
The investigation of the natural system will naturally lead the 
student to the consideration of the physiology of plants—a subject 
which he should lose no opportunity of becoming acquainted with; for, 
without a clear view of the physical constitution of vegetables, he will 
never be able to account for the union of a graft and a stock, how a 
wound on a tree is healed, or whence the new roots of a cutting are 
ejected. 
The attainment of these different branches of knowledge requires 
that the beginner should first of all have a decent school education, 
which suffices for the ordinary business of gardening; but when 
engaged in practical botany, or in the study of its systems, he will 
find that a little Greek and Latin will be of the utmost use to him. 
