OF HUMPHRY MARSHALL. 4S!) 



prevent his services, in a public capacity, from being occasionally 

 put in requisition. The Legislature of Pennsylvania, in February, 

 1773, passed an act establishing a Loan Office, and appointed 

 Humphry Marshall, of Chester County, one of the trustees. 

 These trustees were continued in office until December, 1777, when, 

 owing to difficulties in the discharge of their duties arising out of 

 the Revolutionary conflict they neglected or refused longer to 

 serve, and were superseded. 



In 1780, Humphry began to prepare an account of the forest 

 trees and shrubs of this country, which was completed and printed 

 in the latter end of the year 1785, under the title of " Arbustum 

 Americanum: The American Grove, or an Alphabetical Cata- 

 logue of Forest Trees and Shrubs, natives of the American United 

 States" 



It formed a duodecimo volume of near two hundred pages ; and 

 is believed to be the first truly indigenous Botanical Essay pub- 

 lished in this Western Hemisphere. The arrangement, being 

 alphabetical, is rather inconvenient, and ill-suited to investigators 

 who are unacquainted with the genera. But the descriptions are 

 in accordance with the Linnsean system, and are, for the most part, 

 faithful and satisfactory. The book is dedicated to the officers and 

 members of the American Philosophical Society ; and was, for that 

 day, and under the circumstances, a useful and highly creditable 

 performance. Like its respectable author, it was at least half a 

 century in advance of the community in which it appeared ; and 

 consequently was neither understood nor appreciated at home. 

 But among the scientific of the old world, it was received with 

 marked approbation, and was promptly translated into the preva- 

 lent languages of continental Europe. 



On the 29th of March, 1785, Humphry Marshall was elected 

 an honorary member of the Philadelphia Society for promoting 

 Agriculture, "the Society inviting his assistance." And in Feb- 

 ruary of the following year, he sent them an essay on the impor- 

 tance of botanical knowledge to the cultivators of the soil. That 

 essay was never published; but it has been preserved in the 

 archives of the Society, an interesting memento of the intelligence, 

 forethought, and practical sagacity of the author. It will be found 

 at the close of the present volume.* 



* The editor has been highly gratified in finding his own humble efforts, in 

 behalf of Agricultural Botany, thus preceded and sanctioned. As a Chester County 



