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American Association principles. The adoption of the first edi- 
tion of Linnaeus’ Species Plantarum, 1753, as the starting point of 
our system of nomenclature was carried through the Genoa Con- 
gress immediately after its adoption at Rochester in 1892. The 
Austro-German botanists in a meeting held last September 
adopted another fundamental principle of the American code, the 
retention of the oldest specific name, under whatever genus pub- 
lished, a principle already put in practice in the later numbers of 
Engler and Prantl’s Natiirlichen Pflanzenfamilien. 
There are some botanists who hold that the Association rules, 
although sound, should not be made retroactive. Even in the 
Harvard rules, three of the four Association rules are expressly ad- 
mitted to be desirable in future practice. It should be evident to 
every thoughtful person that if these principles are not made 
retroactive the desired reform will in no sense be secured. A 
gardener might with equal wisdom propose to improve a weedy 
garden simply by preventing the introduction of any more weeds. 
In the view of the reformers it is necessary to remove the old 
weeds as well as to keep out the new. 
In some respects nomenclatural reform will escape in botany 
the difficulties that formerly beset it in zodlogy. We have the 
gratifying assurance that we are not trying an experiment, that 
the plan is not a merely theoretical one, and that its complete 
success will unquestionably be attained in botany as it has already 
been attained in zodlogy. Furthermore, we are able to do ina 
few years, in one stroke, as it were, what zoodlogists, feeling their 
Way over new ground, were many years in accomplishing. All 
botanists dislike changes in names, and the sooner they can be 
properly made the better. 
There are doubtless some botanists who believe that by gen- 
eral agreement any set of names may be made permanent—that, 
for example, an International Congress may decide arbitrarily that 
certain generic or certain specific names are to be considered the 
Proper ones, regardless of any principle. If this were feasible it 
would be an easy solution of the question, but those who have 
confidence in such a solution surely cannot have taken into con- 
sideration the fact that naturalists and other scientists usually 
have very little respect for mere authority and very great respect 
