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INTRODUCTION TO BOTANY. 13
Others were studying botany practically in the fields, and
endeavouring, as we already said, to reconcile the plants
of Germany to the descriptions of Dioscorides. Brunsfel's
work was published in 1530, and Cordus, another writer
on the same subject, in 1535. The learned Gesner bestowed
part of his attention upon botany, and first proposed to
denominate all plants which have the same flower and fruit,
however different they may be in other respects, by the
same common name; or, in modern language, to found
the genera upon the fructification alone. The plants of
Germany were, however, still further examined by Leonard
Fuchs, a physician, and professor at Tubingen. His
History of Plants is adorned with 510 of the most beautiful
and correct outlines that have ever been cut in wood.
The draughtsmen employed were Hemy Fullraaurer and
Albert Meyer, and the wood-engraver was Vitus Rudolph
Speckle ; all whose portraits, in half-lengths, are given at
the end of the work, as Fuchs', in full length, ornaments
the back of the title. The author had good reason to be
proud of his artists. His great error was lit applying the
names of Dioscorides to the plants of Northern Europe;
nor was he less an admirer of Hippocrates and Galen,
whose medical writings he vigorously defended against all
opposers.
Although the Great Herbal was the only botanical work
published in England during the reign of the eighth
Harry, much attention was given to agriculture and
kitchen-gardening. One of the judges (Fitzherbert) did
not disdain to write on Husbandry. A committee of privy
council, the prototype of our present Board of Agriculture,
was appointed to obtain statistical accounts of the kingdom,
Anne of Cleves, when transformed by act of Parliament
from the wife into the sister of Henry, endeavoured ,
to forget the slights of the monarch in the cultivation of
vegetables. And it is probable, that some of the kitchengardenei's
at Chelsea are the descendants of the Flemish
gardeners, whom her real brother sent over to manage her
garden there.
The reign of Edward the Sixth was distinguished by
the publication of Turner's New Herbal; in which the
alphabetical arrangement of former authors was still followed.
Turner was born at Morpeth in Northumberland,
and educated at Cambridge, about 1538. Fie complains
much of the ignorance of natural history that then prevailed
in England, even in the universities. " Being then,"