Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/134

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EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS.

more favorable conditions, the human plant that is short-lived and dwarfed becomes perennial and arborescent. . . . . I have learned in a shorter time and more accurately the meaning of the scientific terms used in botany from a few plates of figures at the end of the "Philosophia Botanica," with the names annexed, than a volume of explanations or glossaries could teach. And, that the alternate pages may not be left blank, Linnæus has given on them very concise and important instruction to students of botany. This lawgiver of science, this systematizer, this methodizer, carries his system into his studies in the field. On one of the little pages he gives some instruction concerning "Herbatio" or botanizing. Into this he introduces law, order, and system, and describes with the greatest economy of words what some would have required a small volume to tell, all on a small page; tells what dress you shall wear, what instruments you shall carry, what season and hours you shall observe, namely, " from the leafing of the trees, Sirius excepted, to the fall of the leaf, twice a week in summer, once, in spring; from seven in the morning till seven at night." When you shall dine and take your rest, etc., whether you shall botanize in a crowd or dispersed, etc., how far you shall go, two miles and a half, at most; what you shall collect, what kind of observations make, etc., etc.