4 ADDRESS OF THE EDITOR. {January, 



The Editor assumes from the following facts, that there is no 

 inconsiderable share of vitality in the ' Phytologist.' In the 

 first place it has been a favourite, otherwise it would long ago 

 have disappeared, and have been consigned to the limbo of 

 unsuccessful speculations. It has been a prominent object on the 

 small stage of botanical activities upwards of twenty years. 

 Again, the contributors are gradually increasing, a sure evidence 

 of growing prosperity, because they supply both the facts and 

 the pecuniary assistance. Under the present management the 

 sale has been more than doubled, and the contributors have 

 multiplied more than a hundredfold. 



From experience it may safely be inferred, that no exclusively 

 botanical publication, unless issued at a high price, can be a self- 

 supporting adventure. The publisher who speculates on a greatly 

 enlarged circulation by diminishing the price, will act as im- 

 prudently as a knee-buckle merchant of the last century, who, 

 as stories tell us, sent a large consignment of buckles, universally 

 used in this part of the kingdom, to the regions lying west 

 and north of the Grampian Hills, where, he had been told, 

 that there was not one dealer in this article of general wear. 

 He learned to his sorrow, that though he had the market 

 solely to himself, there were no buyers, because the people 

 there dispensed with the garment for which knee-buckles were 

 manufactured. 



During the last thirty years several serials, with botany for 

 their sole or chief object, have been fairly started under 

 tolerably favourable prospects ; but their career was not of long 

 duration. With the view of increasing our sale and lowering 

 the price, the following is thrown out as a hint to our subscribers, 

 and especially to our correspondents, with this proviso, that it 

 cannot be undertaken until the present publisher has entirely 

 ceased to have any concern in its publication. 



The Editor's proposal is to enlarge the sphere of the ' Phy- 

 tologist,^ or, in other terras, to make it a comprehensive 

 digest of the progress of the kindred natural sciences; for 

 example, to combine zoology with botany. There are several 

 of our contributors, zealous friends of the ' Phytologist,^ who 

 could, and probably would, aid us in supplying facts about 

 animals as well as about plants. It is probable that our 



