36 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.84 



was a resident of Washington he used his pencil effectively against 

 certain government officials. 



After he left school he was apprentice to the proprietors of a 

 woolen-goods warehouse, where he remained until 21 years of age. 

 On reaching this age, he was given his small fortune and went to 

 Munich, Germany, where he began to study fruit and flower painting 

 in oil under Mattenheimer. He remained in Germany two years, and 

 acquired a high degree of proficiency in a somewhat limited range 

 of fruit and flower painting. 



Friends or relatives had gone to America, and, attracted by the 

 reports of the beauty of this country, he came to the United States 

 at the end of his two years' study of art. He did not intend to make 

 more than a short visit, but, as it happened, he never went back to 

 England except on two short trips years afterwards. He traveled for 

 four years in the United States, visiting the far south and the south- 

 west, collecting insects, birds, and plants ; finally returning to the 

 northeast and settling down at New Rochelle, New York. Here he 

 spent most of his time in fishing and hunting, and apparently for a 

 time led an unproductive life. At Fishkill, New York, however, he 

 met Miss Sarah T. Byrnes, and later married her. He then lived at 

 Fishkill for 10 years, leading the life of a country gentleman and 

 occupying himself with the care of fruit and ornamental trees and 

 of his garden. During this period he met A. J. Downing, the author 

 of " Fruit and Fruit Trees of America," became deeply interested in 

 pomology, and elaborated a system of illustrating American fruits 

 by a series of very wonderful facsimiles. He exhibited a collection 

 of these reproductions at various state fairs, and gained a high repu- 

 tation as a pomologist. Eventually he was invited to take his models 

 to Washington for exhibition. 



He arrived in Washington in the winter of 1853, at a time when a 

 new Bureau of Agriculture was about to be established in the United 

 States Patent Office. He received an appointment as " Expert for col- 

 lecting statistics and other information on seeds, fruits, and insects in 

 the United States." He held the dual position of Entomologist and 

 Special Agent, and his duties necessitated travel in different parts of 

 the country and particularly through the Southern States. He studied 

 the insects of many crops, especially those affecting cotton and the 

 orange. 



With the exception of an interval of two and a half years, when, 

 having resigned his position (in 1859), he went to the Agricultural 

 College of Maryland where he taught entomology, he remained con- 

 nected with the Bureau (made a Department in 1876) until 1878, 



