The study of grasses would be of great consequence to a northerly
and grazing kingdom. The botanist that could improve the sward of
the district where he lived would be an useful member of society;
to raise a thick turf on a naked soil would be worth volumes of
systematic knowledge; and he would be the best commonwealth's
man that could occasion the growth of 'two blades of grass where
one alone was seen before.'
I am, etc.
Letter XLI
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, July 3, 1778.
Dear Sir,
In a district so diversified with such a variety of hill and dale,
aspects, and soils, it is no wonder that great choice of plants should
be found. Chalks, clays, sands, sheep-walks and downs, bogs,
heaths, woodlands, and champaign fields, cannot but furnish an
ample flora. The deep rocky lanes abound with filices, and the
pastures and moist woods with fungi. If in any branch of botany we
may seem to be wanting, it must be in the large aquatic plants,
which are not to be expected on a spot far removed from rivers,
and lying up amidst the hill country at the spring heads.
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