which they can have a pleasant view of the country, not in a tangled labyrinth, wherein, after running about for half the day, they end by having seen just nothing at all. In truth that the merits of the Linnæan system are great, will appear even from the words of Dr. Lindley himself in the very same Preface :

'Linnæus in 1731 invented a system depending on variations in the sexual organs. This method has enjoyed a degree of celebrity which has rarely fallen to the lot of human contrivances, chiefly on account of its clearness and simplicity; and in its day it undoubtedly effected its full proportion of good."

He adds indeed—but we can by no means adopt the mere theory announced

'Linnæus probably intended it as a mere substitute for the Natural System, for which he found the world in his day unprepared, to be relinquished as soon as the principles of the latter could be settled; as seems obvious from his writings, in which he calls the Natural System primum et ultimum in botanicis desideratum. He could scarcely have expected that his artificial method should exist when the science had made sufficient progress to enable botanists to revert to the principles of natural arrangement, the temporary abandonment of which had been solely caused by the difficulty of defining its groups. This difficulty no longer exists.'

6

The difficulty of definition may be surmounted; but the difficulty of remembering those definitions, so as to use them as a botanical alphabet, is sorely increased. We defy any amateur -who must be content to have either a superficial' knowledge of botany, or none at all-we defy him, stout-hearted though he may be, not to feel depressed on glancing through Dr. Lindley's Analysis of the Orders-only 262 of them in the edition of 1830-and they being the alphabet of one Class of the Natural System! On meeting with any plant which presents to his eye a decidedly novel aspect, he will be hard pressed to know to which of the -aceæ, -iferæ, -ineæ, -idea, or other -a, he is to refer it, and will at last fall back on the aid (most patiently and promptly rendered) of the editor of the Gardener's Chronicle. But if his unknown specimen be a British native, and he happens to have a copy of the English Botany within reach, how happy will he be to dissect his new-found flower, determine its Class and Order, and in five minutes pitch upon the very thing itself!

In the Natural System it is an apparently simple arrangement, but a real cause of confusion, to divide the whole Flora of the world into two Classes only, i. e., I. Vasculares, or flowering plants, and II. Cellulares, or flowerless plants;-and then to subdivide Class I. into 262 Orders-with the anatomical and constitutional peculiarities of all of which the student has to make

himself

himself familiar before he can begin to enjoy the pleasure of investigating for himself. Of course, these remarks will be understood to apply solely to the use of the Natural System as a key and an index to botanical knowledge. To the study of vegetable physiology and the natural affinities of plants, it is not merely useful, but necessary. Still it is the ultimum rather than the primum in botanicis. Through Linnæus we know plants more readily; even if through Jussieu we understand them more thoroughly. By the one mode we make their acquaintance; by the other our acquaintance is converted into intimacy. The English student is advised to begin with Sir James Smith's works and end with Dr. Lindley's. The Knight should preside over the catalogue, the Professor over the herbarium.

As a specimen of memoria technica, nothing easier to carry about with one than the Linnæan Classes, whether we retain his original 24 or consent to reduce them to 22-as the reader will find by the rapidity with which the artificial memory can be refreshed after years of disuse. But fancy-not a Robert Fortune-but a 'superficial' let loose in some undiscovered nursery-ground in the north of China; what a clear account he will give of the things he sees there, if he be allowed to make no use of Linnæus or Sir James, and even do happen to have a Natural System in his pocket! Besides, he may stumble on a plant which may belong to a new Order: what is he to do then? Before he is justified in making a new Order he must have thoroughly compared his plant with the characters of all the others-not an easy task to execute off-hand.

One very common objection to the Linnæan System — we mean that grounded upon the exceptions and the anomalies which arise in the course of its application-is to our mind a merit; for the fact indicates, beyond mistake, that the plan is an artificial one, for convenience sake, and not an attempt to explain the scheme of creation. And exceptions confirm a rule, in the memory at least. A diandrous grass fixes itself on the attention. No person of common sense would suppose that it is not a grass because it does not happen to grow in the field Triandria. It assists us in remembering the rushes to find the bog-rush, Schænus, and the club-rush, Scirpus, in Triandria, instead of with the rest of their friends in Hexandria,

The intending beginner shall himself judge by which method he is likely to make the fastest progress at the outset. We will suppose that he is investigating the not very easy genus Juncus, or Rush. He meets with a specimen in flower, and soon determines its Linnæan Class and Order. Referring to the English Botany of Smith, he finds at once

'Juncus

Juncus acutus. Great Sea Rush. Hexandria Monogynia. GENERIC CHARACTER.-Calyx of 6 leaves, permanent. Corolla, none. Capsule, superior, of 3 valves, with 1 or 3 cells. Seeds, several. Stigmas, 3. SPECIFIC CHARACTER.-Stem round, naked. Panicle, terminal. General involucrum of two spinous leaves. Capsules,

roundish, pointed.'

But in the Natural System of Lindley he stumbles upon-it must be by guess or chance—

Order CCXLIV.-JUNCEE. The Rush tribe.

' DIAGNOSIS.-Hexapetaloideous herbaceous monocotyledons, with a superior ovarium, a half-glumaceous regular perianthium, a pale soft testa, a single style, capsular fruit, and an embryo next the hilum. 'ANOMALIES.-Flowers sometimes scarcely glumaceous.

ESSENTIAL CHARACTER.-Flowers hermaphrodite or unisexual. Calyx and corolla forming an inferior, 6-parted, more or less glumaceous perianthium. Stamens 6, inserted into the base of the segments; sometimes 3, and then opposite the calyx. Anthers, 2 celled. Ovarium, 1 or 3 celled, 1 or many seeded, or 1-celled and 3-seeded. Style 1. Stigmas, generally 3, sometimes only 1. Fruit, capsular, with 3 valves, which have the dissepiment in their middle; sometimes destitute of valves, and 1-seeded by abortion. Seeds with a testa, which is neither black nor crustaceous; albumen, firm, fleshy, or cartilaginous; embryo within it. R. Br. (1810)-Herbaceous plants, with fascicled or fibrous roots. Leaves, fistular, or flat and channelled, with parallel veins. Inflorescence, often more or less capitate. Flowers, generally brown or green.'

To take another case, where there can be no difficulty in guessing the Natural Order to which the specimen belongs, the reader is advised to compare the generic and specific characters of the Malva sylvestris, or common mallow (Monadelphia polyandria), of Sir James Smith, with the diagnosis, anomalies, and essential character of the Malvacea, or mallow tribe, of the Natural System.

These two systems, we repeat, are not inconsistent and antagonistic, like the corpuscular and undulatory theories of light, but may, and ought to be, made mutually to support each other. One is the dictionary, the other the grammar of the science. The Linnæan arrangement is professedly artificial; but it performs much more than it promises. Artificial systems for the discrimination of plants are one thing; and, as Sir James Smith says, 'the philosophy of botanical arrangement, or the study of the natural affinities of plants, is quite another matter. But it would be as idle, while we pursue this last-mentioned subject, so deep and so intricate that its most able cultivators are only learners, to lay aside the continual use of the Linnæan System, as it would be for philologists and logicians to slight the convenience, and indeed necessity,

14

necessity, of the alphabet, and to substitute the Chinese character in its stead.'

Amidst our old school of Garden Literature the name of Evelyn marks quite an epoch. His Kalendarium Hortense, or Gardener's Almanack, set the pattern for a multitude of similar productions, and may even yet be referred to as a useful reminder. His 'plant potatoes in your worst ground' is what we are obliged to come to after all. It is now the fashion to resuscitate from long forgotten seed-drawers many of his plants that had been shelved for years, as chervil and basil: and attempts are being made to render others more popular, as orache and lamb-lettuce or corn-salad. Purslane, we hope, will follow in the list of revivals; in Germany it is still in great request for spring soups. Ourselves, long baffled in an attempt to raise a crop of skirrets from seed, found in him the wrinkle which a host of gardeners had failed to supply: 'March. Sow skirrets in rich, mellow, fresh earth, and moist; and when about a finger long, plant but one single root in a hole, at a foot distance.'-His New Conservatory or Greenhouse was the beginning of a series of results which it would be very long to relate. His translation of the Compleat Gardener, by M. de la Quintinye, chief director of all the gardens of the French King,' which, when made English,' he believes to be 'first and best of that kind that introduced the use of the Olitorie garden to any purpose,' must have had its effects; as also his 'Acetaria, or Discourse of Sallets '-proving (even although pickles are included in the term†), that a more varied and artistical sallet could be served two hundred years back than now, and that our only mode of advancement in this line is to revive old fashions. our list of 'sallet-plants reduced to a competent number, not exWhere is ceeding thirty-five? We may be inclined to refuse the sowthistle, so exceedingly welcome to the late Morocco ambassador; but such a thing as a good salad is now never dished in England, if there be truth in the proverb

'L' insalata non è buon, ne bella,

Ove non è la pimpinella.'

This pimpernel is our common burnet; but,' says Evelyn, 'a fresh sprig in wine recommends it to us as its most genuine element'-which may well account for its being 'of so cheering

*The French call them salade de prêtre, from their being generally eaten in Lent.' -Evelyn. They certainly deserve a place among the penitential herbs: The stomach that has admitted them is apt to cry peccavi.

Melon.-The abortive and after-fruit of melons, being pickled as cucumber, make an excellent sallet. Potato.-The small green fruit (when about the size of the wild cherry) being pickled, is an agreeable sallet.'

and

and exhilarating a quality.' Sampier,' too, is cruelly neglected :

'Not only pickled, but crude and cold, when young and tender (and such as we may cultivate and have in our kitchin-gardens almost the year round), it is, in my opinion, for its aromatic and other excellent vertues and effects against the spleen, cleansing the passages, sharp'ning appetite, &c., so far preferable to most of our hotter herbs and sallet ingredients that I have often wondered it has not been long since propagated in the potagere, as it is in France, from whence I have frequently receiv'd the seeds, which have prosper'd better and more kindly with me than what comes from our own coasts. It does not indeed pickle so well, as being of a more tender stalk and leaf, but, in all other respects, for composing sallets it has nothing like it.' We are all acquainted with

'One that gathers samphire'

half-way down the face of Dover cliff; but how many of our readers know the taste of the produce of that 'dreadful trade'? The samphire business now-a-days must be a small concern. One or two species of glasswort are sold and pickled in Norfolk by the style and title of samphire, but are as false a substitution as was the fair maid who listed under the name of Richard Carr.' The pickled Salicornias taste of nothing but the vinegar and the spices, and altogether differ from that classic umbellifer the Crithmum maritimum.

Were it not unfair to disturb the repose of so good a man, one would almost wish to raise the ghost of Evelyn to solve a great difficulty of modern times-what is the mode of dressing sallet? Family quarrels have arisen on the subject; the salad-bowl may yet lead to divorces à mensâ. With us, an early recollection is simple lettuce shred tolerably fine, just moistened all over with vinegar, and dusted with sugar; a preparation to be tried by those hitherto ignorant of it. A mode that has been dogmatically insisted on, as the only orthodox one, is to wipe each leaf of lettuce (which is alone admissible) dry; then to bring the oil in contact with every part of the surface, finishing with the least dash of vinegar and sprinkle of salt. This would be the order of the day-pure and simple. A favourite Parisian top-dressing is to place a little flock of fresh-water crayfish on the summit of the verdant mass; an appropriate garnish for fish salads, and, with us, imitable by shrimps and prawns when crayfish are not. The azure and blue flowers of borage, and the orange and brown ones of nasturtium, are grateful to two senses at least ; but it is not easy to have them fresh on a London sideboard. Faded, they are as bad as the flowers out of Madam's last summer's bonnet. Dr. Kitchener's cooked salad, strewn over with a stratum of uncooked,

deserves