THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS.—BOTANY.

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adornment, and for taste ; the chemical qualities or propertiesof plants in their particular uses, and in their general influ-ences upon the atmosphere which we breathe, in the gaseswhich they take in, and those which they exhale; thecontrol and influence which human sagacity and power havebeen able to exert over the vegetable world in acclimatingplants, in propagating them, in fructifying and engraft-ing, and changing the different species; all these mattersdirectly involved in the science of botany, render it oneof the most interesting of studies; and, even in its pre-sent imperfect state, it is the business of years to masterit. The extensive discoveries, likewise, which have beenmade of fossil plants, in particular geological formations,which, as compared with present existing species, lead to somany curious inductions in regard to the past conditionof the earth, open to the mind many interesting subjects ofinquiry. It is as obvious, likewise, that the establishment ofa common scientific and technical language, by which thedescription of a plant, wherever found, shall be every whereunderstood, and the plant, when met with, recognized, is ofthe highest importance. But botany, as it is commonlytaught in schools, and as it appears in botanical works ingeneral use, seems little else than a vocabulary of arbitraryand technical terms, in a language not generally understood,creates usually but little interest, and is of little practicalutility. Within my limited knowledge, the botanical work isyet to be written, which shall present the subject in thatnatural, plain, instructive, familiar, comprehensive, elevated,—I hope I may add, without offence to science,—popular form,which would give to rural pursuits and recreations, and to theculture of ornamental as well as of useful plants, an interest,a utility, a delight, even to humble minds imperfectlyeducated, infinitely beyond what they are now found to havewith many persons, in other respects of cultivated taste andenlarged knowledge.