select for himself the one best suited for his purposes. This,
however, has never happened in relation to any one art; in every
case manufacturers have had to make the best of the materials which
chance or accident has brought before them. It is strange and
startling, but nevertheless perfectly true, that even at the present
time there are many excellent and abundant productions of nature
with which not only our manufacturers, but, in some instances, even
our men of science, are wholly unacquainted. _There is not a single
book published which gives even tolerably complete information on
any one of the different classes of vegetable raw produce at present
under our consideration_. The truth of these remarks will be felt
strongly by any one who takes the trouble to examine any of these
great divisions of raw materials. He will obtain tolerably complete
information respecting most of those substances which are known in
trade and commerce; but of the greater number of those not known to
the broker, he will learn little or nothing. Men of science, for the
most part, look down upon such knowledge. The practical uses of any
substances, the wants and difficulties of the manufacturer, are
regarded as mere trade questions, vulgar and low--simple questions
of money. On the other hand, mere men of business do not feel the
want of such knowledge, because, in the first place, they are
ignorant of its existence, and secondly, because they do not see how
it could aid them or their business; and if it should happen that an
enterprising manufacturer desires to learn something of the
cultivation and production of the raw material with which he works,
he generally finds it quite impossible to obtain any really sound
and useful information. In such cases, if he is a man of energy and
of capital, he often is at the cost of sending out a perfectly
qualified person to some distant part of the globe, to learn for him
those practical details which he desires to know. This is no