and horses require no oats, although hard worked, when they are fed with it. Its increase of produce exceeds that of common grass land about thirty times, and it will last from ten to fifteen years. It yields an aftermath, or second crop.

Curtis, in his Practical Observations on British Grasses, speaks slightingly of the festuca ovina, and says that it appears to him applicable only to the purpose of making a fine-leaved grass-plot, that shall require little or no mowing. On the other hand, Withering, in his botanical arrangement of all the vegetables naturally growing in Great Britain, intimates that the superiority of the spanish and english wool is owing to the abundance of this grass in the hilly pastures where the sheep are kept.

Curtis has enumerated twenty-five genera, and one hundred and twenty-three species of grasses growing in Great Britain, and has judiciously remarked, that to constitute the herbage of a good meadow there must be a combination of produce, bateableness, and early growth. Bateable is altogether an agricultural or provincial term, and he uses it to express cattle's thriving on the food they eat.

The best grasses of Europe have been neglected, and our indigenous ones have been, in a great measure, overlooked by us. Let our scientific men, our practical men, turn their attention to this and other important branches of husbandry, as yet scarcely noticed, and affording inexhaustible topics for investigation, and Let them be encouraged in their labours by the observation of Bacon, that" Virgil got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning, in the expressing of the observations of husbandry, as of the heroical acts of Æneas."

NOTE 36.

This grass produces a fine perfume, and has the same effect on tobacco as the vanilla bean. It delights in a rich soil, and may be easily cultivated. It is greatly superior, in its odoriferous qualities, to the anthoxantum odoratum, or sweet-scented vernal grass, the only one of that kind which grows in England. Cattle are very fond of it, and it must produce the most delicious milk, butter, and butchers' meat. There is, however, great danger of its total extirpation, as it is very scarce. Indeed, the same danger is to be apprehended, and the same fatality has, no doubt, occurred in other instances. Hudson, on the 6th of September, sent a boat to sound the Kills between Bergen and Staten Island, and his men on their return reported, that the "lands were as pleasant with grass and Fowers, and goodly trees, as ever they had seen, and very sweet smells came from hem." This is not now the case. The grazing of cattle, the rooting of swine,

the plough, and other implements of agriculture, have entirely destroyed a great number of the annual grasses and plants which formerly flourished in this coun try. Several persons told Kalm, so far back as 1748, that the loss of many odoriferous plants, with which the woods were filled at the arrival of the europeans, but which the cattle have now extirpated, might be looked upon as a cause of the greater progress of the fever; for that the great number of those strong plants occasioned a pleasant scent to rise, in the woods every morning, and evening. The vegetable kingdom of our western country is uncommonly rich, and luxuriantly abundant, because cultivation has been but partially extended to it. Hage have produced great destruction among all tuberose and bulbous plants. Even the laurel tree of Carolina has become almost extinct in many parts of the country, owing to the depredations of domesticated animals.

Although some plants, like some animals, are no longer seen in our country, yet the field of botanical investigation is immeasurable and boundless. Our country embraces every variety of soil and climate, mountains, rivers, lakes, and salt waters, and is the favourite depository of the vegetable riches of the earth. In the United States, we are yet in the infancy of this science.

The first edition of Linnæus's Species Plantarum contains only 7,300 species. A curious amateur of botany took the pains to enumerate the plants described in dr. Turton's translation of Gmelin's edition of the Systema Nature, and in a work of Willdenow, and found 2,046 genera, and 19,803 species of plants, of which 638 genera have but one species; 263 but two; 174 but three; and 124 but four. And it is supposed, that the whole number of described plants amounts to about 22,000.

Mr. Jacob Green has annexed to his well-written and interesting Address on the Botany of the United States, (delivered before the Society for the promo tion of Useful Arts,) a Catalogue of plants, indigenous to the state of NewYork. This list, which mr. Green admits to be incomplete, contains about 403 genera, and 1,283 species.

The catalogue of the hitherto known native and naturalized plants of North America, made by that indefatigable and learned botanist dr. Muhlenberg, contains but 863 genera, and not 2,800 species. It is not unreasonable to estimate the whole number of plants in the United States, and their territories, 28,000 and as yet we have not described 3,000. What an opening does this afford for the operations of scientific inquiry? no wonder that Linnæus was so anxious te visit this country. Catesby, in his Hortus Europa Americanus, published in 1767, truly observes, that a small spot of land in America has, within less than half a century, furnished England with a greater variety of trees, than has been procured from all the other parts of the world, for more than a thousand years past.

From information which has recently reached me, I am persuaded, that our dutch ancestors paid more attention to the improvement and natural history of the country, than has been generally imagined. We are, as yet, greatly in the dark with respect to events and observations during their occupancy of New Netherland, as they termed their country; but the means of information are amply within our reach. De Leart wrote a book respecting it, wherein he gives a very particular account of the indians; and Megapolensis, an eminent dutch minister, who formerly lived in this city, also published a work on this country when a dutch province; and I have now before me a manuscript translation made by the rev. dr. Bassett, of dr. Van der Donk's History of New Netherland, published in 1655. It is very interesting, and it is to be hoped, that that worthy gentleman will meet with sufficient encouragement to publish it, and also correct translation of De Laert and Megapolensis, for which no man in this country is better qualified. Van der Donk states, that a certain surgeon, a resident of New Netherland, had formed an extensive botanical garden, in which he planted many medical roots, which he cultivated from the woods adjacent to his abode; but by the removal of that worthy gentleman from the country, his humane and patriotic exertions were lost to the world. This, I undertake to say, was the first botanical garden established in this part of America. It appears, also, from this work, that most of the medicinal and other herbs, with which the country abounds, were known to our dutch forefathers; that they took uncommon pains to introduce the best cereal gramina, legumens, and excellent vegetables, and fruit of various kinds, and have even cultivated canary seed; that they introduced the white and red, the cornelian and stock roses, wall flowers, tulips, imperial flowers, the white lily, and lily of the valley, ladies' rose, violet, and gold flower, and that the country abounded with flowers peculiar to it, of the most beautiful kind, to which the european was an entire stranger; viz. the sunflower, the red and yellow lily, the morning glory, the white, yellow, and red marygold, a species of wild eglantine, the different kinds of the bell flower, and many others.

Our dutch ancestors also turned their attention to improving the dyes of the country: great hopes were entertained from the wild indigo; and they not only supposed that the common indigo might be raised to great advantage, but they actually tried the experiment. Seed was imported from Holland. The first attempt failed, owing, as it was supposed, to an extraordinary drought which prevented the plant from coming to maturity: but another experiment completely succeeded the seed was sown near New Amsterdam, (New-York,) and a great crop was obtained; specimens were sent to the other country, where good judges pronounced it of a superior quality. But what is still more extraordinary is, that there is reason to believe that it was contemplated to introduce

:

the famous orchilla weed. When the spaniards discovered the Canary Islands, they sought for it as eagerly as they did for gold: it was probable, that it was made use of to produce the gertulian purple of the ancients; and they also had in their view other vegetable dyes, which we cannot now accurately designate. "The crap plant," says Van der Donk, "for dying red, is not cultivated in New Netherland, but it is not to be questioned, that if it were tried it would yield well." I must repeat my wish, that this curious work may soon see the light. It appears from it, that the country was so remarkably healthy at that time, that it was a strange thing to hear of a person being sick; that the east wind did not extend far west; and that the climate was as mild at that period as it now is.

NOTE 37.

See Busching's Geography, vol. 1. Temple's Works, vol. 3. Walpoliana. There can be no doubt but that several species of some of these trees existed in a wild state at home, previous to their introduction from foreign countries. It is presumable, for instance, that the chesnut always grew in Italy, and the cherry in France; but different kinds, on account of their superior excellence arising from cultivation, were imported by the ancient romans. Wherever their arms extended, they availed themselves of the choice fruits of the conquered countries, and the great generals who brought them to Rome took pride in giving them their own names, as in memory of some great service or pleasure they had done their country; so that not only laws and battles, but several sorts of apples or mala, and of pears, were called Manlian, and Claudian, Pompeian, and Tiberian, and by several other such noble names. Thus, in process of time, the inhabitants of Italy, who formerly lived on acorns, made the whole world tributary to their subsistence, as well as to their glory. Humboldt, in his Account of New Spain, (vol. 2.) says, that the prunus avium is indigenous in Germany and France, and has existed from the most remote antiquity in their forests, like the robur and the linden tree; while other species of cherry-trees, which are considered as varieties, become permanent, and of which the fruits are more savoury than the prunus avium have come to those countries through the romans from Asia Minor, and particularly from the kingdom of Pontus.

Turnips and carrots are considered indigenous roots of France; our cauliflowers came from Cyprus; our artichokes from Sicily; lettuce from Cos; and shallots, or eschallots, from Ascalon. The art of gardening was introduced into Eng

S

land from the continent about 1509, prior to which most of the present produce of kitchen gardens was imported from the Netherlands.

NOTE 38.

The comparative mortality of London has not only greatly diminished within the last fifty or sixty years, but a number of diseases which, previous to that period, were very destructive, have almost entirely disappeared; for instance, the plague, the rickets, and the scurvy while others that were formerly considered very mortal, are now viewed as no longer formidable; such as the small pox, the dysentery and intermittent fevers.

Other diseases, supposed to be less dependent on the physical than on the moral and political changes which Great Britain has undergone, have increased in number and fatality; and are attributed, chiefly, to the increase of manufactures; and, consequently, of the number of sedentary and otherwise unwholesome occupations to the augmentation of the national wealth, and with it, of luxury and high feeding; and to the fluctuations in the conditions of life, attendant on the spirit of commercial speculation. To the first of these sources is ascribed, in part, the regular increase of the consumption, during the last century; to the second, the more inconsiderable, but scarcely less regular, increase of apoplexy, palsy, gout, and sudden deaths; and to the last, the more frequent occurrence of insanity in its different forms: and the increase of intemperance and vice, in a large and populous city, doubtless contributes much to the augmentation of all these diseases.

Dr. Heberden states the proportion of these three classes of disease, at the be ginning, middle, and end, of the eighteenth century, to have been as follows:

If we compare the mortality from consumption, at those three periods, with the

total mortality, we find, that in 1669 the deaths, from consumption, were, to the

whole, as,