20 GEOEGB LAWSON ON THE PEESENT STATE OP BOTANY, Etc. 



briugiug our facts within reach of our own fellow-countrymen, to whom they will be 

 most useful. For the printing of the more finished class of papers, the publications of the 

 numerous local scientific societies in Canada, now happily associated with the Eoyal, give 

 opportunity, and the volumes of ' Transactions of the Eoyal Society ' itself form the proper 

 repository for such treatises as, by their elaboration or requirements of illustration, extend 

 beyond the capabilities of the local societies. However, mere local lists, scraps, accounts of 

 botanical excursions, unless they are marked by literary merit, or some feature extraneous 

 to the mere record of botanical facts, cannot be expected to be acceptable to any of our 

 existing publications, and thus the valuable facts which they embrace are apt to be lost 

 to science. 



It is with the view of suggesting the propriety of adopting some means for advan- 

 tageously meeting the wants, whose existence I merely require to indicate rather than 

 explain, that I have taken the liberty of now asking the attention of this section of the 

 Eoyal Society. I do not propose that a botanical periodical shall be established. I hope, 

 however, that some method may be devised whereby immediate publication of every 

 season's botanical field observations throughout Canada may be secured. The completion 

 of Prof. Macoun's great work, the " Catalogue of Canadian Plants," in which the working 

 botanists of Canada have now a valuable guide, seems to be a fitting time for devising 

 some suitable scheme. 



My proposal, or suggestion rather, in brief, then is, not that the Eoyal Society shall 

 take any action or new responsibility, nor that this section shall do so, but that its 

 botanical members, and those who desire to associate themselves with them, shall form 

 an organization of the simplest possible kind, for securing such of the results referred to 

 as it may be thought wise to attempt, — to organize a band of gleaners, as it were, follow- 

 ing as far as practicable the model of the old Berwickshire Naturalists' Field Club of 

 Scotland, that did really good work under the admirably simple constitution that it 

 should have no rules, no by-laws, no officers, no restraint of any kind, but the implied 

 marching order that, on their field days, the members would voluntarily follow their leader 

 as far as their own individual wills or inclinations might lead them. Our organization 

 would possibly require some bond of union a little stronger than this. I forbear, how- 

 ever, to make any suggestion, even in that regard, further than to say that, if the botanical 

 members of this section will agree to undertake the task and duties of local secretaries in 

 their respective localities of some such prospective organization, a nucleus can be formed 

 which may in time extend into an army of explorers pervading the whole extent of our 

 Dominion. Each local secretary can, in his locality, direct the stream of local observations 

 into the general channel, and thus secure valuable records or material that would other- 

 wise be lost, and within his own range assist and encourage young workers in the many 

 ways known to a botanist. Meetings of all the members of such a widespread organiz- 

 ation could never be held at any one point, but it might be practicable, once a year, when 

 we come up to the Eoyal Society's annual gatherings, for many of the local secretaries 

 and other nuclear elements, to hold a conference, as is usual with similar clubs and 

 offshoots of, for example, the British Association, — one of which, the old Eay Society, 

 resembled in organization, although not in purpose, very much what is now proposed. 

 But I am more anxious to hear the suggestions of my fellow members in this section on 

 the poiiits mooted than to put forth any more definite scheme. 



