PREFACE. Vil 
will be of great service as a guide in all efforts to increase the productiveness 
of these sources of aliment. So a knowledge of the plants that serve for beauty 
or use will make a man a better farmer, a happier and more useful citizen. 
_ These considerations are so obvious that no labored argument should be neces- 
sary to demonstrate the utility of volumes like this now presented to the 
public, and the economy of the expenditure of the small sum which it has cost. 
The avidity with which it will be sought by thousands of our citizens will soon 
attest their high estimate of its value. — 
For the care and accuracy with which the volume has been edited, credit is 
to be given to Dr. J. M. Wheaton, who, in addition to the preparation of the 
most voluminous report contained in it, assumed the onerous position of editor, 
has read all the proof, and has decided all the difficult questions of typography. 
For the mechanical execution of the book we are indebted to the courtesy and 
cooperation of the Supervisor of Public Printing, Col. J. K. Brown, and to the 
technical skill of the Public Printers, Messrs. Nevins & Myers. . 
Of the other volumes contemplated in the original plan of publication of the 
results of the Geological Survey, only the Second Part of Vol. III, on 
Paleontology, and Vol. V, on Economic Geology, yet remain unpublished ; but 
the work has progressed slowly, since it has been done without aid from the 
State. It would before this have been presented to the Legislature for publi- 
cation, bnt the opinion has been expressed by the friends of the Geological 
Survey that it was not at present wise to request appropriations for a volume 
regarded by some as ornamental rather than useful, and that it should wait the 
completion of the volume long half done, on Economic Geology. The delay 
in the pubiication of this latter volume has been dependent upon a failure to 
make the appropriation of the small sum necessary to finish the field work and 
the maps that should accompany it. For this money was absolutely necessary, 
and the sum of $5,000 was asked some years ago. During the last session the 
Legislature appropriated the desired sum, placed the work in charge of Prof. 
Orton, and it is in a fair way to be completed. When that volume shall have 
been issued it is to be hoped that measures will be taken to secure the publica- 
tion of the two half volumes, one on Botany, etc.; the other on Paleontology, 
which will render the series symmetrical and complete. 
Enough has been said in regard to the Botanical and Entomological reports 
to show their utility and the importance of having them published and distrib- 
uted. This is not the place to advocate the completion of the reports on the 
Paleontology of the State; but it is permissible to say that the prejudice that 
opposes the publication of figures and descriptions of the fossils contained in 
our rocks is a narrow and unwise one. Aside from the wide-spread interest 
felt in these extinct forms of animal and plant life, their practical value is un- 
deniable and great. Every geologist knows that fossils constitute his most 
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