HICKORY NUTS. 153 



whether they are old or new, this adding to the confu- 

 sion, without benefit to either purchaser or cultivator. 



To assist those who may have occasion to consult 

 these pages for either the common or botanical names of 

 the different species of the hickory, I shall. endeavor to 

 give the greater part of those compiled by Prof. C. S. 

 Sargent (Tenth Census), Dr. Britton, and other emi- 

 nent authorities whose works I have had occasion to 

 consult in writing this treatise. It is not certain, how- 

 ever, that these revisions and readjustments of the sci- 

 entific names of this genus of trees will remain undis- 

 turbed for any considerable number of years, for we 

 have "many men of many minds" at work in the line 

 of botanical research, and it can scarcely be expected 

 that all will reach the same conclusion, either in fact or 

 fancy ; besides, it is often difficult, if not wholly impos- 

 sible, to determine a species from the description given 

 by the earlier botanists, for they are generally very brief 

 and vague, and will often apply equally well to two or 

 more species of the same genus. In some instances not 

 a word is given in the way of description, merely a 

 name, as in " Bartram's Travels" (1791), where he speaks 

 of Juglans exaltata, a tall-growing hickory found in the 

 region through which he was traveling, and we now 

 know that it may have been any one of two or three spe- 

 cies indigenous to the Southern States. 



Under such confusing circumstances I shall make 

 no claim of infallibility in applying names to species, 

 but attempt no more than my predecessors have in the 

 same direction, and my contemporaries are now attempt- 

 ing, L e., make as close a guess as possible as to the spe- 

 cies or variety of hickory which the earlier authors in- 

 tended to name and briefly describe. The date of pub- 

 lication of some of the earlier works consulted are given, 

 as an earnest of my desire to assent to the law of priority 

 in such matters. 



