294 Annals of Horticulture. 



plants as represented in America. While editorial duties and failing health 

 prevented the accomplishment of this great task for which he was so well 

 prepared, he was able to do much for his beloved science. For example, 

 he contributed all the botanical papers in the Appleton's New American 

 Cyclopedia, a work the usefulness of which can only be known by those 

 who saw how much of botanical error and untruth were published in the 

 original edition. He was the author of nearly a hundred pages upon the 

 graminae in the "Botany of California." 



There is a vast amount of substantial scientific work that cannot be out- 

 lined here, for it was done in connection with his oversight of the publica- 

 tion of hundreds of rural books upon a wide range of subjects by the firm 

 with which he was so long associated — The Orange Judd Company. 



In 1880 Dr. Thurber, accompanied by his lifelong friend, Dr. M. Miles, 

 spent a few months in Europe, where he met many of his former corres- 

 pondents and friends in the botanical and horticultural world. Nearly all 

 the letters of condolence from these friends across the ocean contain com- 

 plimentary words of Thurber's important visit to their countries. It was 

 his wish to travel, but his heavy frame and rheumatic limbs made long jaunts 

 painful to him, and, therefore, he was almost always at home and at work. 



He was a life member and vice president of the American Pomological 

 Society, and presided at the Atlanta meeting. To the botanists of his own 

 city he was best known as the long-time president of the Torrey Botanical 

 Club, the immediate successor of his old friend and botanical adviser for 

 whom the club is named. Dr. John Torrey. He was president of the New 

 Jersey Horticultural Society, member of both the New York and the Phila- 

 delphia Academy of Sciences, and various other societies. 



As a worker, Dr. Thurber was indefatigable and rested only when he 

 could work no longer. He knew neither day nor night so long as his 

 strength lasted. " Not infrequently would his labors continue through the 

 night, the hours uncounted, until the family rising perhaps late Sunday 

 morning, would find him still engaged at his writing, the rays of his lamp 

 mingling unnoticed with those of the sun." During the last years of his 

 life it was a custom to have his couch by the side of his table, where he 

 would work to exhaustion and then retire until strength was gained sufficient 

 to resume his task. 



As an editor, Dr. Thurber always held broad and liberal views of every 

 important question that bore upon the best interests of his constituents. 

 His contempt for anything that favored of sham was unbounded, while his 

 praise of worthy objects and honest men was equally generous. As the 

 writer of the "Humbug columns," he made his journal the terror of 

 swindlers and charlatans, and largely because of his straightforward, truth- 

 ful and convincing exposures in well-chosen words that cut like a knife. 

 Although frequently tempted by alluring offers, he would not grant an un- 

 scrupulous advertiser space in his journal. In short, his abhorrence of 

 quackery and adulteration was such that even in the smallest matters he 

 took all possible precautions to discourage and condemn them. For example, 

 he had his own little hand pepper-mill at table, and ground out upon the 

 spot, frequently with words of commendation of the principle at stake, the 

 condiment needed for his viands. His intense love for getting at the solid 

 underlying facts of things sometimes almost made him uncomfortable. 

 This is humorously illustrated in his not being able to enjoy his green peas 



