THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 9 



It is not my purpose to give a complete history of the Botanical Society 

 of America, but I do want to mention a few significant actions and events 

 which took place in the next twenty years. At the 1908 meeting in Baltimore 

 the Society approved an honorarium of $50 to be paid the secretary for each 

 annual meeting which he attends. Although this action was taken almost 

 fifty years ago, it is of interest that the Society has never seen fit to raise 

 the magnitude of the honorarium, although the work of the secretary's office 

 has increased tenfold and there has been a marked inflation. The Society 

 also approved $250 for research grants for the following year. 



At the 1909 meetings of the Society in Boston a committee was appointed 

 on Botanical Publication, and for the first time a symposium on botanical 

 teaching was held. At the 1911 meeting in Washington, the Publication 

 Committee pointed out that annually some 300 or more pages of American 

 botanical production were sent abroad for publication and that the delays 

 before publication amount to about one year. It was estimated that a 

 journal publishing 400 to 600 pages annually could be published at a cost 

 of $2500. It was pointed out that after a few years the journal might expect 

 to have as many as 400 subscribers. However, in view of the large annual 

 outlay demanded, the Committee recommended that action be delayed until 

 some source of funds could be found. The committee on the relation of other 

 botanists to the Botanical Society of America urged that the Botanical 

 Society invite the Society of Phytopathologists, the Society of Bacteriologists, 

 the Sullivant Moss Chapter (as it was then called), and the American Fern 

 Club to appoint committees "to confer with a similar committee from the 

 Botanical Society with the possibility of establishing closer relations among 

 these various organizations in order to bring about an effective union of all 

 who are engaged in botanical work in this country." -^ At the 1912 meeting 

 of the Society a committee of five under the chairmanship of Professor New- 

 combe was empowered to establish a journal as the official organ of the 

 Botanical Society of America. The Society authorized expenditures up to 

 $500 to aid in this enterprise. At the next meeting — the 1913 conclave — the 

 Committee reported that it had reached an agreement with the Brooklyn 

 Botanic Garden which offered to cooperate in publishing and to share the 

 expenses of the new journal, the American Journal of Botany. At the De- 

 cember, 1914, meetings at Philadelphia, an editorial committee of the new 

 journal was named as follows: F. C. Newcombe, L. R. Jones, A. S. Hitchcock, 

 and I. W. Bailey. Later, Newcombe was named editor-in-chief. Some nine- 

 teen years before (on August 18, 1895) F. C. Newcombe (Rodgers, 1952, 

 p. 284) had written to Erwin F. Smith: "that another journal might not 

 come amiss, I would like to see pushed. In the whole English language we 

 have no journal like the Botanische Zeitung or B. Centralblatt. The Annals 

 is good for extensive articles, but gives us no reviews. The Gazette gives us 



25 Ibid., p. 138. 



