INTRODUCTION. 37 



garding the permanent and actual for the transient and 

 theoretical. If, therefore, we approve sucli a course of 

 action, we in reality cut the solid ground from beneath 

 our feet. Our view of this matter is fully confirmed by 

 the dissatisfaction of many of our botanists, and their 

 freely expressed intention to use the Rochester Code only 

 until they find something better. Indeed, even one of the 

 leaders among the faithful of late refuses to follow the 

 Code in regard to the starting point for genera. 



Of course the greatest fault to be found with the Code 

 arises from the wanton exercise of ex post facto legislation 

 to accomplish the ends of its advocates. Were the ques- 

 tion of botanical nomenclature in the main a matter of 

 interest to scientists only, as until very recently orni- 

 thological nomenclature has been, this legislation would 

 do no great harm if generally assented to; but to employ 

 it in a science like that of botany, where generic and 

 specific names have become, as it were, subjects of prop- 

 erty rights, is unwarranted and short-sighted in the 

 extreme. One result has been, that if we follow the Code 

 we may have a botanical name and a horticultural name 

 for the same plant, both correct, but one to be used at 

 one time, one at another, — a somewhat humiliating state 

 of affairs when it is borne in mind what efforts have been 

 made to make horticulturists use the generally accepted 

 botanical names. The worst of the whole matter is that 

 the horticulturists are dealing sensibly with facts as 

 they find them, while the botanists are striving with 

 theories to annihilate facts. It is hard enough, as any- 

 body of experience knows, to make a horticulturist adopt 

 a change in nomenclature made necessary for scientific 

 reasons ; but how impossible it would be to force upon him 

 a change made merely to carry out a theory or a system 



