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THE GUIDE TO NATURE. 



was then practicing medicine in our coun- 

 ty (Lewis Co., N. Y.) Our common interest 

 in birds had brought us together in early 

 boyhood, and great was the delight and in- 

 spiration gathered by our opportunities of 

 comparing field experiences and specimens 

 collected. With me, as with him, the fas- 

 cination of our favorite branches of science 

 were too strong to enable us to be content 

 with the practice of medicine. He soon 



ROMEYN B. HOUGH 

 Author of an ideal "Handbook of the Trees." 



left it to accept an inviting position offered 

 by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 and is now the efficient Chief of the U. S. 

 Biological Survey. 



I put aside the medical work to devote 

 my thoughts to a device for sectioning and 

 preparing woods, in hopes of being able to 

 bring out a publication illustrating it by 

 actual specimen-sections of the woods in- 

 stead of pictures. It was undertaken at the 

 suggestion and under the inspiration of my 

 father, whose able counsel and assistance 

 were of great advantage to me. My task 

 required first the invention and perfection 

 of a section-cutter which I finally accom- 

 plished. In my experimenting with this 

 machine it was found that the transverse 

 sections of certain woods were, to my sur- 

 prise, of such ivory-like smoothness and 

 strength as to be suitable for cards for com- 

 mercial purposes. Some of them were ac- 

 cordingly taken out by salesmen to be tried 

 in the trade. The salesmen soon found the 

 trade almost hungry for them, and twice we 

 were obliged to call them in and wait until 

 we could catch up with the orders. The de- 



mand necessitated the erection of a small 

 factory with its equipment, and I soon found 

 myself busy in the manufacture of the cards 

 for both the domestic and foreign trade. 



This unexpected off-shoot from my original 

 plans caused me to lay aside for the time, 

 the scientific purposes for which I had de- 

 signed my machine. I was able, however, 

 finally to resume them; but alas! I was 

 obliged now to take up the work alone, as 

 my father, an able counselor, was taken 

 from me by death. The memory of his 

 pleasure in the early success of my experi- 

 ments and his wish that I go on with my 

 plans strengthened my lagging spirits, and 

 I did the best I could alone. 



In 1888 I reached the first goal of my 

 ambition in bringing out the first volume of 

 my American Works. In this I illustrated 

 twenty-five kinds of native and naturalized 

 woods by actual specimens, each species 

 being shown by three sections, respectively, 

 transverse, radial and tangential to the 

 grain, both heart and sap-wood being in- 

 cluded when possible. In an accompanying 

 text I gave much information as to botanical 

 characters, distributions, uses, physical and 

 medicinal properties, etc., of the various 

 species considered. The wood-sections 

 were mounted on separable pages and these 

 with the text were gathered into a book- 

 like cover so as to be kept on a table or 

 shelf like an ordinary volume. 



Encouraged by the reception of this pub- 

 lication, I have continued the series un- 

 til I have thus far brought out ten vol- 

 umes and am planning to bring out five more 

 (two being now in advanced preparation), 

 so as to cover eventually all of the import- 

 ant woods of the United States. A very 

 gratifying evidence of public recognition of 

 the value of this work has been the recent 

 award of the Elliott Cresson Gold Medal 

 by the Franklin Institute of the State of 

 Pennsylvania. 



I make it my personal duty to gather the 

 woods used for the specimens in order 

 that I may be able to vouch for authentic- 

 ities, and while having the material in hand, 

 I prepare also sections for use with the 

 stereopticon and the microscope. 



When I commenced issuing American 

 Woods, the art of half-tone illustration 

 existed only as a vision in the mind of its 

 inventor and was not available for my use 

 in photographically illustrating the leaves, 

 etc., of the trees. The developments in that 

 art of recent days have been so great that it 

 seemed to me that a companion work to 

 American Woods, giving carefully prepared 

 photographic illustrations of the character- 

 istic leaves, fruits, winter-branchlets and 

 barks of our various trees with photo-micro- 

 graphs of wood structures and maps show- 

 ing distributions should be issued. My 

 interest in the subject and unusual opportu- 

 nities while gathering woods in the field, 

 seem to indicate that I shouid bring it out. 

 I accordingly set about the task, but little 

 realizing the many vicissitudes which must 



