having received a shilling by way of donation. Their books consist at present of many botanical works, comprising eleven volumes of Smith and Sowerby's English Botany, Green's Universal Herbal, Smith's English Flora, Withering's Arrangement, Gardener's Magazine, and they are beginning to purchase the Encyclopædia of Plants.

In the town of Bury, a few miles distant, another society exists, called the "Bury Botanical Society," only differing from the former inasmuch as it unites entomology with botany. The list of subscribers to this society contains about fifty names, comprising several highly talented individuals, tradesmen, mechanics, and a few labouring gardeners. Their library contains many popular works on botany and gardening, amongst which are, the Gardener's Magazine, Encyclopædia of Gardening, many volumes of the Botanical Magazine, Hortus Kewensis, &c., with several entomological publications. The meetings of this society are held on the first Wednesday in each month, for the same purposes as the preceding.

The method pursued at these meetings is this: - Each member brings what specimens of plants or flowers he chooses, which are all laid on the table, without order or arrangement, as nature exhibits them in a wild state: after the members are assembled and seated, the president takes a specimen from off the table, and gives it to the man on his left hand, telling him, at the same time, its generic and specific name; this person must pass it on to the next in the same manner, till it has gone round the room; and in this manner all the specimens produced, amounting sometimes to some hundreds, are handed round the company, and are then selected for the purpose of enriching a herbarium, or decorating a room. One person is president of both these societies, at least as far as the nomenclature of plants is concerned, a poor cotton weaver, or, if you please, a "degraded" Lancashire operative manufacturer.

We have several other societies of a description similar to the above, established in various parts of the country, which have, besides their particular meetings, general ones, at which any person may attend who feels inclined so to do. By these means the indigenous botany (with the exception of some of the most obscure tribes of Cryptogàmia) of this neighbourhood is very well known; and, if our gardeners were as much inclined to assist in disseminating botanical knowledge as some of our mechanics are, our exotic botany would be equally so; but such an inclination exists only in a very few of them.

But I think I have written sufficient for one letter at preWhat use you will make of this communication I know

sent.

not; I hardly think you will publish it, but you must use your own discretion. Whether you publish, mutilate, or destroy it, is but of little consequence to Your very humble servant,

J. HORSEFIEld.

Pilkington, near Manchester, December 14. 1829.

We shall be happy to receive from Mr. Horsefield accounts of the other societies to which he alludes, and are much gratified at the proof he has here given of the taste for, and knowledge of, botany, which exist among the weavers of Lancashire. We are still more gratified at the evidences which some of these operative manufacturers have afforded, at recent public meetings, of sound political knowledge and good moral conduct, and of their determination to persevere in their endeavours to obtain political reform. Whatever be the kind of knowledge which a man may find it necessary or desirable to obtain for his own private use or gratification, he ought always to join with it a knowledge of politics and political economy; in order that he may clearly understand his rights as a man and a citizen, the precise point to which his country has attained in civilisation and happiness with reference to other countries, and the political and moral improvement of which it may be susceptible. Having ascertained these things, it then becomes his duty to cooperate with his fellow-men, in every lawful, honest, and peaceable means, in bettering their condition. Cond.

ART. III. Vegetable Pathology. By a WARWICKSHIRE
NATURALIST.

NATURAL History is a study no less amusing than instructive. It extends the bounds of knowledge into regions which, though long in sight, yet have remained unexplored and neglected; and, while we have been seeking for objects of interest in distant climes, we have overlooked or despised the wonders of creation within our reach at home.

The eager search after, truth, in these days of restless enquiry, has redeemed the supineness of former times; and that heavenly fruit, which has so long hung on the tree of knowledge within the reach of the philosopher only, has been freely plucked by all who chose to gather it. Nature has been wooed in her thousand forms, and pursued to

hitherto impeded by mystical symbols, or rendered inaccessible by learned languages, has been cleared and levelled for the convenience of every traveller.

The discoveries of our most celebrated naturalists have thus become the text-book of all ages and all stations; and the earth, the air, and the sea, instead of yielding their productions merely to gratify the vanity or luxury of man, have afforded a more noble repast to his intellectual appetite.

Among the various branches of natural history which have long occupied the attention of mankind, none has been so generally followed as botany. The attraction of flowers and fruits, beautiful by their colours, tastes, and smell; the delight of rearing a living thing, which grows under our eye, and developes itself from a shapeless mass to one of extreme beauty and loveliness; whose life is free from pain, and whose death seals the promise of its reappearance; the facility and cheapness of procuring sustenance for its support; and, above all, the absence of all unnecessary torture and disgusting experiments, have long made botany the favourite study of both sexes; and, consequently, there is no science more generally known, and so far advanced to perfection. The physiology of the vegetable kingdom has thus become a beaten track, open to all, even to the lowest capacities; and, though new discoveries are daily arresting the steps of the traveller, and some unnoticed plant or flower is gathered, to adorn, instruct, or benefit mankind, yet the circle of discovery is more circumscribed in this than in any other branch of science.

There is no department, however, in the vegetable kingdom, which has been passed over with so much neglect as the diseases of plants, and their medical treatment, and which, if pursued philosophically, would explain many phenomena at present inexplicable. I am aware that physiologists have not passed over in silence many diseases to which particular plants are liable, and have described many remedies by which those diseases may be alleviated or removed; and I am aware, also, that the practical, as well as scientific, horticulturist, the rearer of the cabbage and of the pine, have endeavoured to obviate the evils in their respective avocations. But the scientific treatment of the diseases of plants, by remedies adapted to their construction, analogous to the diseases of animals which affect them, has passed without notice or enquiry. This is the more extraordinary, because the analogy of animal and vegetable life and formation; the growth, maturity, and decay of each; the necessity of food, light, and air; the circulation of the blood and the sap; the distinction of sexes; the effect of climate, of cold and of heat; with an infinite

variety of other circumstances, equally affecting the animal and vegetable world, and drawing their analogy still closer the more they are investigated, appear to point to similar treatment; and thus, if remedies were applied to the diseases of the vegetable world, occasioned by any of these interruptions to their natural growth, health, and perfection, and arising from similar causes to those which affect the animal kingdom, the pathology of vegetables might afford a materia medica for horticultural practice.

In order that I may not be misunderstood, and subject myself undeservedly to the sneers of the ignorant and incredulous, I will shortly point out in what the animal and vegetable world so essentially agree; and in another letter show how very much the diseases of both resemble one another in their origin and effect, and how a similar treatment might be attended with successful results.

Nature has been divided into three kingdoms, animal, vegetable, and mineral. Animals are so called from anima, the breath. Vegetables, not having breath, but merely growth, are so called from vigeo, to grow. Of animals, man holds a distinct and preeminent superiority, chiefly, if not solely, occasioned by his being distinguished from the brute creation by the soul, by whose agency all his actions are governed, and the material part of him refined and purified. In what, then, consists the difference between man, animals, and vegetables? Principally in this man is composed of soul, mind, and body; an animal, of mind and body; and a vegetable, of body only. If this distinction be kept in view, we shall see that vegetables differ no more from animals, than animals do from man; and that the highest order of vegetables is, if any thing, nearer to the lowest order of animals, both in formation and functions, than the highest order of animals is to man in his wild and savage state. In almost every thing where the influence of mind takes no part, and which is conducted without its aid, the animal and vegetable kingdom resemble each other in a most extraordinary degree. Each are endued with instinct, by which they are compelled to involuntary actions adapted to their respective natures, wants, and dispositions: the animal, for its self-preservation, for the continuance of its species, and for the protection and provision of its young; the vegetable, for the perfecting of its seed, for its sustenance by its roots, and for the purpose of deriving the necessary benefit of light and moisture. If any impediment stands in the way of these involuntary actions, they both surmount the obstacle by powers inherent and unfelt by them; and it is

rated upon by external objects, that the comparison ceases. That the mind and soul are two distinct qualities, there can be no doubt: for the soul remains with the body when the mind is gone; and the brute creation have many of the powers of the mind without possessing the soul. I may be asked, what do I call mind? To this I answer, that the mind is that medullary part of man and animals called the brain, to which the senses convey ideas by nerves terminating thereon. In man, possessed of that divine part called the soul, the brain receives impressions through the senses; and, having the power of retaining, improving, and enlarging the ideas impressed upon it, is acted on by the soul, to enable it to choose good from evil, to give his actions that moral beauty which is called conscience. In animals, though similar impressions are made upon the brain by the nerves through the senses, yet, having no soul, they have no power to distinguish good from evil, and thus all their actions must be the result of impressions made upon them by external objects. Instinct supplies to them the place of the moral choice of man; and, where that choice would be necessary for their guidance, they involuntarily act, like vegetables, without any knowledge or consciousness of what they are doing. A dog, and other animals, may be taught to do many things, which in man would be the result of a moral choice; but they make those distinctions not by the power of any moral influence, but solely from the impressions made upon their brain, whether caused by the recollection of past punishment, or by the fear of future pain; and unless from long habit they should have forgotten their natural propensities, they would, when those impressions were worn out, return to their original nature. Now, the seat of all sensation is the brain; and however we refer any pain or pleasure in any part of our person to the part affected, yet, the nerves, conducting that sensation to the brain, the brain is the place alone affected. This is too well known and acknowledged to require illustration; but I may mention the practice of nerving a horse's foot to cure him of lameness, and the use of the tourniquet to deaden the pain of amputation. I have heard, from unquestionable authority, that persons who have lost a limb in distant countries have frequently imagined pain in that very limb, but which the remains of the divided nerves have conveyed to the brain, and thus caused this illusion. If, then, the seat of sensation is the brain, it follows, of course, that where there is no brain there can be no sensation; and therefore the senses would in such case be unnecessary. Vegetables, therefore, can have no sensation, nor any power of action originating from themselves; and it follows, that all