ASA GRAY. 327 



The botanical department of Harvard University was practically cre- 

 ated by Asa Gray. In 1805 a small Botanic Garden was established at 

 Cambridge, under the auspices and by the aid of the Massachusetts So- 

 ciety for Promoting Agriculture, and William Dandridge Peck was 

 appointed Director and Professor of Botany. In 1818 he printed a " Cat- 

 alogue of American and Foreign Plants cultivated in the Botanic Garden, 

 Cambridge," in which 1,309 species were enumerated ; but the list in- 

 cluded some common cryptogams found everywhere, and a large num- 

 ber of phamogarnic shrubs and weeds, common natives of the region, 

 hardly to be counted as legitimate members of a botanic garden. Pro- 

 fessor Peck died in 1822, when, owing to the low state of the funds, a 

 Professor was not appointed; but Thomas Nuttall, the well known 

 botanist and ornithologist, was appointed Curator of the Garden, and, 

 later, Lecturer on Botany. This amiable but very reticent naturalist — 

 who apparently did not find his residence in Cambridge very congenial, 

 for he describes himself as vegetating like his plants — resigned his 

 position in 1833, and returned to Philadelphia. The Garden, such 

 as it was, was then put under the charge of William Carter, a gar- 

 dener, and the lectures on botany were given by T. W. Harris, the well 

 known entomologist and Librarian of the College, and Dr. A. A. Gould 

 of Boston. Not long before 1842 the directorship of the Garden 

 was offered to Mr. George B. Emerson of Boston, who declined the 

 position soon afterwards accepted by Dr. Gray in connection with the 

 Fisher Professorship. 



On Dr. Gray's accession there was no herbarium, no library, only 

 one insignificant greenhouse, and a garden all in confusion, with kw 

 plants of value. In 1844 he moved into the house which had been 

 built for Professor Peck in the Garden, and with his characteristic 

 energy he soon brought together an herbarium and library, and ar- 

 ranged the Garden systematically. At the time of his marriage a 

 small wing was added to the house, of which the lower story served 

 as a study and herbarium until 1864. But the plants soon overran 

 the limits of the herbarium, and finally the whole house was crammed 

 with plants, — plants in the dining-room, in the attic, in the closets, 

 and in the bedrooms ; for whatever he could spare from a salary of 

 $1,000 at first, and $1,600 afterwards, was spent on his herbarium 

 and library. In 1864, dreading the danger from fire to a collection 

 kept in a wooden house, he offered to present his collections to the 

 College, on condition that a suitable building should be erected for 

 their reception. Through the liberality of Mr. Nathaniel Thayer of 

 Boston, a brick building to be used as an herbarium and library was 



