MT. 35.] TO JOHN TORREY. 335 



(who has devoted a life of labor to this end) will 

 actually do. 



As something must be done at once, I have pro- 

 posed to Oakes to make myself the necessary con- 

 spectuses of orders, analyses, etc. ; to join the pro- 

 posed thing on, or to dove-tail it into, the " Text- 

 Book ; " and also to furnish the generic characters, 

 and he is to write the specific characters and all that 

 for New England plants. I give him as limit 250 

 pages brevier type, 12mo (say 300), and insist upon 

 having the greater part of the copy on the 1st March, 

 and that it shall be published on the 1st April. That 

 I may cover the ground of Wood, and introduce it 

 into New York, I propose, if you think it right and 

 proper, to add the characters of the (about 150) New 

 York plants not found in New England, distinguish- 

 ing that by a f. 



Oakes promises to do it. But our understanding is 

 explicit that if he cannot get through with it in time, 

 he is soon to let me know, and to furnish me with 

 New England matters, when I am to do, not exactly 

 this, but a more compendious manual of the botany 

 of New England, New York, New Jersey, and Penn- 

 sylvania, that is, the Northern States proper. It will 

 be imperfect and hasty, but it will prevent Wood 

 from fixing himself so that he cannot be driven out. 



I propose to have a sufficient number of copies of 

 this (in whatever form it may appear) bound up with 

 the " Botanical Text-Book " to meet the demands of 

 the one-book system in New England and New York, 

 and to afford it at a price reduced to a minimum, so 

 that nothing is to be made out of it, at least out of 

 the first edition. 



How does this all strike you ? I am convinced that 



