adopted by the Mass. Hort. Soc, loith Remarks. 99 



No societies, nor individuals, can prevent any person who may 

 originate a fruit, from giving it a name, whether good or poor : it 

 might as well be said that no parent should name his own 

 child. The other part of the rule, that no fruit should be en- 

 titled to recommendation, is all very well. 



II. The originator, first grower, or he who first makes known a new 

 native variety of merit, shall be entitled to suggest a name for such variety, 

 which name, if a suitable one, (i. e. coming within the rules of nomencla- 

 ture,) shall be adopted by the writer describing the fruit for the first time. 

 But if the name proposed is inappropriate, or does not come within the 

 rules, then the describer shall be at liberty to give a name. 



Here, certainly, is a rule at variance with all the conven- 

 tional rules of science, and, in order that we may be fully 

 understood, we quote the following from Sir J. E. Smith's 

 Introduction to Botany , in regard to the principles of nomen- 

 clature : — 



" Before I conclude the subject of nomenclature, I beg leave 

 to offer a few reflections on changes of established names. It 

 is generally agreed among mankind, that names of countries, 

 places, or things, sanctioned by general use, should be sacred; 

 and the study of natural history is, from the multitude of 

 objects with which it is conversant, necessarily so encum- 

 bered with names, that students require every possible assist- 

 ance to facilitate the attainment of those names, and have a 

 just right to complain of every needless impediment. The 

 grateful Hollanders named the island of Mauritius after the 

 hero who had established their liberty and prosperity ; and it 

 ill became the French, at that period dead to such feelings, to 

 change it, when in their power, to Isle de France^ by which 

 we have, in some late botanical works, the barbarous Latin 

 oi Insula Francics. Nor is it allowable to alter such names, 

 even for the better. Americo Vespucci had no very great 

 pretensions to give his own name to a quarter of the world, 

 yet it is scarcely probable that Columbia will ever supersede 

 America. In our science, the names established throughout 

 the works of Linnaeus are become current coin, nor can they 

 be altered without great inconvenience. Perhaps, if he had 

 foreseen the future authority and popularity of his writings, 

 he might himself have improved upon many which he adopt- 



