I only ask any one who thinks that I may be in the
right, to glance through the lists of useful vegetable products
given in Lindley's "Vegetable Kingdom"--a miracle of learning--and
see the vast field open still to a thoughtful and observant man,
even while on service; and not to forget that such knowledge, if he
should hereafter leave the service and settle, as many do, in a
distant land, may be a solid help to his future prosperity. So
strongly do I feel on this matter, that I should like to see some
knowledge at least of Dr. Oliver's excellent little "First Book of
Indian Botany" required of all officers going to our Indian Empire:
but as that will not be, at least for many a year to come, I
recommend any gentlemen going to India to get that book, and while
away the hours of the outward voyage by acquiring knowledge which
will be a continual source of interest, and it may be now and then
of profit, to them during their stay abroad.
And for geology, again. As I do not expect you all, or perhaps any
of you, to become such botanists as General Monro, whose recent
"Monograph of the Bamboos" is an honour to British botanists, and a
proof of the scientific power which is to be found here and there
among British officers: so I do not expect you to become such
geologists as Sir Roderick Murchison, or even to add such a grand
chapter to the history of extinct animals as Major Cautley did by
his discoveries in the Sewalik Hills.
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