14 WILLIAM GILSON FAKLOW— SETCHELL [Mmwim national 



[Vol. XXI, 



His clear outline of " The task of American botanists" in 1886, and his analysis of "Biological 

 teaching in colleges," in the same year, and his humorous but searching characterization of 

 "The popular conception of the scientific man at the present day" convey no less direct and 

 profitable food for thought than his masterly and detailed treatment of "The conception of 

 species as affected by recent investigations on fungi." It is from these published addresses 

 that one may obtain some vivid and truthful ideas concerning the nature and work of the 

 man who wrote them. If one may add, as many still living are able to, impressions from per- 

 sonal contact, informal conversations and talks at small dinners or in company, one may dis- 

 count certain impressions of cynicism, pessimism, and sarcasm, and realize the kindliness 

 yet clear vision of him, whom all those of us who did know him will love and revere. 



As a conversationalist, Farlow was recognized as more than usually endowed with ready 

 wit and repartee. The witticisms which characterize his public addresses were even more 

 abundant and more pointed at times when the occasion called for them. To the bumptious 

 or overgrateful person alike, his shafts struck directly and the conceited received short shrift 

 at his hands. Yet he was ever gentle with the sensitive and, although really embarrassed, had 

 extreme sympathy and desire to assist in the case of misfortune on the part of the truly deserving. 

 He gave of his deep wells of information at times of friendly intercourse. Well do I remember 

 being informally inducted into the history of the development of our knowledge of cryptogamic 

 botany. This happened on the occasion of my more or less formal evening calls upon him 

 in his rooms, then in Holyoke House. After a short call which I presumed would be agree- 

 able to him and I rose to go, he would detain me, with my hand on the door knob, for an hour 

 or more while he discoursed, almost in a monologue, on the personality, ancestry, botanical 

 pedigree, and accomplishments of some distinguished botanist or botanists who had come up 

 in our work. There was much of the unwritten history in these informal talks and food for 

 thought as well as stimulus to further reading after I had finally been allowed to say my last 

 adieu and depart, full of increased knowledge. At his dining club and elsewhere it was more 

 or less a practice to bait Farlow, as it were, to bring out his ready and often biting repartee. It 

 was a contest of some of the best wits of Harvard University, and Farlow is said usually to have 

 borne away chief bonors. 



Farlow 's letters were by no means the least of his influences exerted on behalf of what 

 was best in cryptogamic work in the United States and even abroad. His correspondents 

 seem to have been limited to those interested in any phase of cryptogamic botany. He was 

 in constant interchange of views, literature, and specimens with practically all of the foreign 

 cryptogamic botanists, while those at home had mostly been students with him or later in the 

 cryptogamic laboratories at Harvard University. All difficulties, and particularly puzzles, 

 were submitted to him, and while, at times, somewhat slow to answer, he generally replied 

 briefly but to the point, giving much of his valuable time to this work, solely for the sake of 

 assisting his friends or, possibly at times, to confound those of whose methods and work he 

 could not approve. He must have written many thousand letters, with few exceptions in his 

 own scrawly hand, and of which he, himself, was the severest critic. He did not accustom 

 himself to a secretary or to a typewriter. In his experience were many extraordinary requests 

 and he himself speaks feelingly (1887) of "the impecunious ignoramus who informs you that he 

 is going to write a book, to include all the fungi of this continent, and coolly asks you to give 

 or lend him all your books and specimens and tell him how to begin. " While something definite 

 is likely to have happened to this particular type of person, yet I have no doubt that if there 

 were a grain of reasonableness to be discerned in such a character, Farlow would have recognized 

 it and not have withheld such aid as he might be able to render. We have all fed upon the 

 crumbs which dropped so plentifully from his well-filled larder and yet find ourselves unable 

 to express our indebtedness and gratitude except in a few colorless words. 



As a critic, Farlow was thorough and at times severe, but not intruding his criticism other- 

 wise than called for by his duty to one of his students, nor unasked for. In his many reviews 

 of particular papers or outlines of progress he was manifestly fair. He did not assume the role 

 of mentor as Gray did occasionally in his later years. There is one review of Gray's, a rebuke of 



