398 Mr. Cutler's Account of indigenous Vegetables,

ing to the fifteenth class: they are generally called antiscorbu-tic. Those of the sixteenth, with many filaments, are muci-laginous and emollient. The seventeenth has no poisonousplant; but the seeds, which are food for men and other ani-mals, are farinaceous and flatulent. Those of the nineteenthare chiefly bitter ; and those of the twenty-fourth are mostlysuspected or dangerous plants.

From the want of botanical knowlege, the grossest mistakeshave been made in the application of the English names of Eu-ropean plants, to those of America. Many of our most com-mon vegetables are generally known, and some of them fre-quently prescribed for medical purposes, by the names of plantsthat are entirely different, belonging to other classes, and possess-ed, no doubt, of different properties. Botanical enquiries willenable us to rectify these mistakes, and to distinguish the seve-ral species of European or other foreign plants from those thatare peculiar to America.

We have it, also, in our power, from the recent settlement ofthe country, to determine, with great certainty, what vegetableproductions are indigenous, and prevent those doubts and dis-putes hereafter, which have frequently taken place among bo-tanists in old countries. For it is very improbable that anyexotic plants are become so far naturalized as not to be distin-guishable from the natives.

Was the theory of this science united with its practical uses,and employed in procuring the necessaries, and adding to theconveniences and Ornaments of life, the vulgär opinion of itsbeing merely speculative would be removed, and could not failof engaging a more general attention. For it is well knownthat the economical uses of the vegetable kingdom are exceed-

ingly