Trees and Shnihs of Massachusetts. 177 



uses, and require similar modes of management and culture. The adoption 

 of the Natural System is, therefore, particularly important in a compara- 

 tively new country like ours. 



" The uses of the natural arrangement in abridging the labor of acquisi- 

 tion and aiding the memory of the learner are most important, and its ad- 

 vantages to cultivators, to physicians, — to all who are seeking to enlarge 

 their knowledge of the useful or dangerous properties of plants, that they 

 may be able to avail themselves of the one, or counteract the other, to gain 

 materials for the arts, or remedies or antidotes in medicine, — are too many to 

 enumerate and too obvious to be further insisted upon." p. 3. 



The reader will perceive at once the vahie of the observa- 

 tions found in this volume, when he is made acquainted with 

 the means to obtain them : 



" The descriptions of the species of all the trees, and nearly all the shrubs, 

 are my own, except where I have expressly given credit to others. 

 To collect my materials, I have scoured the forests in almost every part of 

 the State, from the western hills of Berkshire to Martha's Vineyard, and 

 from the banks of the Merrimack to the shores of Buzzard's and Narragan- 

 sett Bays. The leisure of several summers was first spent in ascertaining 

 what the ligneous plants of Massachusetts are, and how they are distributed. 

 If I have not discovered new species, I have found new localities for several 

 oaks, willows, poplars, pines, and birches, and some others of less impor- 

 tance, and have thus enlarged the Flora of the State. That some species 

 have escaped me is altogether probable, as, even in the summer of 1845, 1 

 found the Red Birch growing abundantly on a branch of the Merrimack, 

 some hundreds of miles farther north than it had previously been noticed by 

 any botanist. 



" After having become familiar with the trees and their localities, I be- 

 gan to collect materials for their description ; and every important tree and 

 shrub has been described from copious notes taken under or near the grow- 

 ing plant itself. A point with which I have each year been more and more 

 struck, is the beauty of our native trees and of the climbing vines and under- 

 growth associated with them. I have thrown aside much which I had writ- 

 ten upon this point. Utilitarian readers will perhaps find too much still re- 

 tained. My apology for not pruning more severely must be found in my 

 sincere conviction, that associations with the beauty of trees about our coun- 

 try homes enter deeply into the best elements of our character ; and a hope 

 that what I have written may induce some of my readers to plant trees, for 

 the purpose of increasing the beauty, and the appearance of seclusion and 

 quiet, of the homes of their wives and children. 



" A Report upon the Botany of the State is certainly very incomplete, 

 without even an enumeration of the Algae, the Mosses, the Lichens, and 

 the Fungi ; and, with a hope to prevent this omission, I furnished myself, 

 at the commencement of this Survey, with several somewhat expensive 



