BOTANICAL LITEEATURE. 97 



a Flora, and a supply to meet the demand, long before the 

 year 1847 when the first edition came forth : witness the 

 eight editions which Eaton's Manual had gone through 

 between 1817 and 1840, not to speak of tiie similar treatises 

 by Beck and by Alphonso Wood, whose Class Book, by the 

 way, had reached its tenth edition in the year when Gray's 

 Manual first appeared, and wdiich still seems to hold a secure 

 place in the book market alongside its rival. 



The expressions of disappointment which this sixth edition 

 of the Manual have elicited, do not imply any marked deteri- 

 oration in the character of the book. In few respects is it 

 better, in few worse than former editions. Neither have the 

 botanists of the country become so imreasonable as to have 

 expected now^ a volume for the learned, in the garb of the 

 old school Manual and in the place of it. Such a Flora as 

 botanists long before now ought to have had for the region 

 embraced^a book with thorough and full descriptions, good 

 bibliography, and all on good paper, in neat and comfortable 

 type — could not be brougJit out in one handy volume. It 

 ^ould make three. Everybody must acknowledge this. The 

 dissatisfaction explains itself on this ground only, that we 

 Jiave now in the country a considerable number of people so 

 well grounded in the principles of botanical work as to be 

 aware of the many and serious defects of this book in all its 

 ^flitions, and to deplore them. It is not so much a local 

 I'etrogression, as a general advancement that these things 

 indicate. There has been a revival of interest of late in^ all 

 matters appertaining to systematic botany. A long period of 

 slow decline which, a few years ago had almost reached 

 stagnation except at Harvard University, is ended. There 

 ^^as no more significant token of the general stagnation than 

 tliat attitude of lowly and submissive admiration in which 

 people received every word that was uttered from the botani- 

 cal department of the institution above referred to. This 

 servile posture, so long maintained has done injury to botany 

 in our country, in more w^ays than one. It is an unscientific 

 attitude to begin with ; and it leads almost inevitably to 



