EDWARD LEWIS STURTEVANT 9 



on the introduction of food plants, for seeds of new or curious esculents, 

 for reports on the foods of agricultural Indians, stating the purpose of these 

 questions as follows: " I am collecting the material for writing a Flora 

 Dielica, or a history of food plants, with especial reference to the distri- 

 bution and variation of cultivated plants. My inquiries thus far embrace 

 1,185 genera, and (including probably some synonyms) 3,087 species of 

 food plants." Then follow numerous questions, after which he further 

 states: " Geographical botany, acclimatization through variations, the 

 increase of varieties with the increase of knowledge and the spread of 

 civilization, what man has done and what man can hope to do in modifying 

 vegetable growth to his use and support is a subject of great interest 

 as well as importance; and it seems desirable that information which can 

 be obtained now, while our country is not yet wholly occupied, should be 

 put upon record against the time when the ascertaining of these facts will 

 be more difficiilt." 



The manuscripts at the disposal of the editor show Dr. Sturtevant 

 to have been an omnivorous reader. A glance at the foot-note citations 

 to literature in this text shows the remarkable range of his readings in agri- 

 culture, botany, science, history, travel and general literature. Besides the 

 mass of material from which this text has been taken, there is in the pos- 

 session of the Geneva Station the manuscript of an Encyclopedia of Agri- 

 culture and Allied Subjects, work at which, as the title page says, began 

 March 3, 1879. This encyclopedia, imfortunately for all engaged in 

 agriculture, was completed only to the letter M. Its 1200, closely written, 

 large-size pages form, as far as they go, a full dictionary on agriculture. 

 In addition to the manuscripts left at this Station, are card notes on agri- 

 cultural, botanical and historical matters, while another set, with but few 

 duplicates of cards, are in the possession of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 

 This set, much the better of the two, was put in shape and presented to 

 the Missouri Botanical Garden only a few weeks before Dr. Sturtevant's 

 death. 



In addition to his experimental and executive work, his Notes on 

 Edible Plants and the Encyclopedia of Agriculture, Sturtevant found time 

 to contribute himdreds of articles, long and short, to the agricultural and 

 scientific press. Those of most note are recorded in the bibliography which 

 follows, but the total output of his thirty years of literary work is better 

 gaged as to quantity by a series of scrapbooks in which he systematically 

 preserved his pen contributions. There are twelve volumes of these scrap- 



