CINCHONA AND JOHN SCOTT 8 



How I wish he were a better Botanic Gardener — he 

 has been instructed to propagate Cinchona in Trinidad 

 and made a regular mess of it. A German scientific 

 man is the most unpractical and impracticable pig in 

 Christendom. 



Meanwhile an attempt was being made to alter the nomen- 

 i lature of Cinchonas ; of this he writes (February 14, 1863) : 



Neither Bentham, my Father, nor Thomson nor I will 

 have Chinchona at any price — true enough it is right in the 

 abstract, but it is an innovation that will be forgotten and 

 never followed. At any rate no non-scientific man has any 

 right to dabble authoritatively in scientific nomenclature, 

 and any scientific one is crazy to attempt it before securing 

 the adhesion of a large class of men ; he should have con- 

 sulted us, you, the French, the Germans and pharmacists 

 before attempting to force a change down our throats. As it 

 [is] names are means, not ends ; Cinchona is not only the 

 long recognised equivalent for Count Chinchon's name, and 

 what is of more importance, is the universally recognised 

 name for the Genus. If we change it on grounds of deriva- 

 tion, so we must thousands of names in Botany, Zoology, 

 Geography, and indeed in every-day language of life. 



One of the Kew employes was sent to Dr. Anderson in the 

 winter of 1863, a good gardener, but not likely to become a 

 herbarium keeper or curator, to help at Darjiling cinchona 

 plantations. A year later : 



A first-rate man goes out to you in Scott ; l he is the author 

 of first-rate papers on Hybridization, highly applauded by 

 Darwin, and goes to India to get any appointment he can 

 in Bot. Gardens, Tea or Cinchona. His only faults are his 

 craze for science and a tendency to shirk work for science. 

 In this respect he would suit you well. 



1 John Scott (1838-80), who had been working as a gardener in the 

 Edinburgh Botanic Gardens. See CD. iii. 300 and the interesting biographical 

 note, M.L. i. 217. The latter book also contains Darwin's correspondence with 

 him. Hooker's interest in Scott had been stirred by Darwin — whose letters 

 of May 23, 1863, first suggesting the Indian appointment, and of May 22, 

 1864, when it was settled, are given in M.L. ii. 319 and 331. 



