22 Rhodora [FEBRUARY 
tion of the Forests of Massachusetts, and the importance of early 
attention to some effectual remedy, with extracts from the work of 
M. Michaux on the Forest Trees of North America.” Volume vii. 
contains articles from his pen on “Some slight notice of the Larch 
tree (Pinus Larix), known in various parts of the country under the 
several names of Juniper, Hackmatack, and Larch”; on “Fruit 
Trees,” signed by the Norfolk Gardener, ;and on “Raising the Oak 
from the Acorn and the best way of doing it.” The last volume of this 
publication which appeared in 1832, when he was seventy-one years 
old, contains an article by John Lowell on “The Extraordinary 
Destruction of thé last Year’s Wood in Forest Trees and the probable 
Causes of it;” and on “Live Hedges for New England.” The second 
John Lowell was active in establishing and maintaining the Botanic 
Garden of Harvard College and was one of the original members of 
the Massachusetts Hortieultural Society. To the first annual festival 
of the Horticultural Society held in the Exchange Coffee’ House on 
State Street, September 19, 1829, he sent from his greenhouses’ in 
Roxbury Orange-trees covered with flowers and fruit and a bunch of 
grapes weighing three pounds. 
John Amory Lowell, the son of the second John Lowell and the’ 
grandfather of Percival Lowell, was deeply interested in botany and 
in 1845, thirty years after his graduation from Harvard College, 
began the collection of an herbarium and botanical library with the 
purpose of devoting himself seriously to the study of plants. He had 
made valuable collections and a large botanical library when the 
financial troubles of 1857 forced him to abandon botany and devote 
himself again to business affairs. His most valuable books were given 
by him to his friend Asa Gray and now form an important part of the 
Library of the Gray Herbarium. His herbarium and his other 
botanical books were given to the Boston Society of Natural History. 
John Amory Lowell, like his father and grandfather, was a member of 
the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture. He was suc- 
ceeded by his son John Lowell, who in turn was succeeded by his son, 
another John Lowell, who of the fifth generation in direct descent from 
its second President is now a Trustee of this Society. 
Percival Lowell’s love of plants certainly came to him naturally. 
I first met him in the Arboretum many years ago examining the col- 
lection of Asiatic Viburnums in which he was interested at that time, 
but it was not until 1910 that he began to send specimens to the 
