Retrospective Criticism. 237 



review of the work appeared in the " Magazine of Horticulture," &c., on 

 which I wish to offer a few remarks. Though several years have since 

 elapsed, I had not seen the review till a friend called my attention to it a 

 few weeks since. As the Magazine of Horticulture will, I hope, long be 

 known, and be evermore useful, I ask, for the following remarks, a place 

 on its pages, that the readers may understand the subject when the present 

 actors shall have passed away. 



1. The report was to contain the names of all the known indigenous 

 plants of the state. 1 was not at liberty, had it been desirable, to select 

 the most interesting, and to attempt to pursue the course adopted by Dr. 

 Harris on the insects, which is deservedly commended in the review. 



2. The common cultivated plants were to be introduced into the report, 

 without implying that a multitude of rarer exotics were not cultivated. 

 Hence it was not proper to take as a standard the extensive and splendid 

 gardens near Boston, where g^an/e/i and parlor were used in respect to any 

 cultivated plants. These exotics, rare over the state, would alone have 

 filled a volume, and not been suited to the object. 



3. The descriptions were to be popular, and little of the pure language 

 of botany to be used. It was very difficult to adopt any satisfactory plan, 

 without a failure to please mere botanists and horticulturists. Still it had 

 not then been discovered that the popular course would be the regular sys- 

 tematic one, and there was no known alternative. I was not insensible to 

 the imperfections the botanist would perceive, but, under the directions, I 

 felt that I had no room for selection. 



Some unknown writer appreciated the whole subject, and published, in 

 the American Journal of Science and Arts, Vol. 41, p. 381, a clear and 

 candid view of the report, such as a knowledge of the case required. Still, 

 the writer in the magazine doubtless expressed his honest convictions, and 

 has my regard. It was not then known that the plan of my colleague, Mr. 

 Emerson, in his excellent Report on the Trees of Massachusetts would be 

 popular, though the fact has proved it. 



4. Though the rose may be ranked with the shrubs, it was agreed, for 

 obvious reasons, that that genus should be placed where it was. 



5. A writer of some distinction has lately published, and in the discus- 

 sion the last winter, in your city, on the grasses, it was repeated, that 

 clover is an important grass of the northern states. As the grasses yield so 

 much food, many, who are not versed in botany, think that clover is a 

 grass, and put into the same class beans, potatoes, yams, and many more. 

 I trust this will satisfy the reviewer on a sentence he rather captiously con- 

 demns. 



I trust these reasons, given without asperity, will secure their insertion 

 in your valuable work. 



6. Into one important mistake I was inadvertently led, which is easily 

 corrected, and which my friend, Prof. Gray, was so kind as to point out to 

 me. As Prof. Hitchcock had already published the Natural Orders of 

 Lindley, at the end of his Geology of the State, it seemed desirable not to 



