O0NTRJR4TTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY NO. 16 



farm- out the material to Watson, Engelmann. Boott. arid pos.sibly some oth- 

 ers, but he still held the strings on us all. 1 hen Greene and 1 soon began to 

 publish our own species, for we felt < riginlv j that we knew more about the 

 western flora than Gray did. Gray a.t nine r< -belied and tried to shut us off 

 from publication by wrium; »o tV»i!;-r (Botann <1 Ga/ette). and the Torrey 

 Bulletin and demanding dm iht-v do not publish any secies by anyone till 

 die proposed specie:- bad hi- approval. this led to ihe refusal of those 

 journals t® publish our species fill we had Gray's permission. And later on 

 they published an agreement to that effect, or substantially to that effect. I 

 have in my possession a letter from W. R. Gerard, editor of the Torrey Bul- 

 letin, informing me of the fact. My reply to him was that I considered his 

 action as- pusillanimous, hut that I would follow his instructions if I ever 

 ottered any more MS. to hi ad I never have offered any 



MS. to the' Torre> Bulletin sit a \fter Or ; . ,nd \\ it>on died there sprang 

 up a number or led to heed the compact to 



submit to Harvard n.w specie--; amuna them was Zoe .published by the 



r '- ••■-. 



for I felt t 

 "Push." 1 have always 



Botany. Robinson has kept up the 

 Harvard, and deserved our support, and 1 consider the 

 f the Synoptical flora by him as a fine piece of work, however 

 much I disagree with parts of it. So far as I am concerned there never has 

 l>een any attempt on the part of Harvard to restrict my publications since 

 the death of Gray, and any attempt would have been met at once with a 

 rasping refusal. But there has been in another way an attempt to gobble 

 botanical work by subsidizing workers under the dire* tion of the Bronx. No 

 other excuse can be given for the production of Small's flora of the southern 

 states, Rydberg's second flora of Colorado, and Abram's second edition of 

 the flora of Los Angeles. Some years ago I received a request to furnish 

 botanical articles for the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washing- 

 ton. This request came from the editor. My reply was that I would do so 

 if there was no attempt to dictate to me on the subject of nomenclature, for I 

 would submit to no- dictation in the matter. The reply was that they followed 

 the "American Code" and would expect all articles to follow it. I have 

 never submitted any articles. Whether the "Push" still tries to control 

 American botany I do not know, and I do not care. But one would think 

 that there is still an undercut- a: in th ..-. direction. Since the advent of 

 Coville in the Department of Botany of the Agricultural Department at 

 Washington, there has been a steady reduction in the efficiency of the pub- 



