i sturtevant's notes on edible plants 



phrasing and seldom at loss for the proper word. To classical Bowdoin, 

 too, Sturtevant owes his remarkable ability to use languages. Greek, 

 Latin, French and German in the written form were familiar to him, and 

 he was able to read, more or less well, scientific treatises in several other of 

 the European languages. Though he was not graduated with his class at 

 Bowdoin, the college later gave him her degree of Bachelor of Arts and 

 still later further honored him with her Master of Arts. 



Sturtevant entered the Union army in September, 1861, as First 

 Lieutenant of Company G, 74th Regiment of Maine Volvinteers. It speaks 

 well for the youth of barely twenty-one that the following January he 

 became Captain of his company. Company G was a part of the 19th Army 

 Corps which, during Captain Sturtevant's service in it, was stationed on 

 the lower Mississippi where, possibly, its most important work was the siege 

 of Port Hudson. A part of Sturtevant's time in the army was spent on 

 the staff of General Nickerson, 3d Brigade, 2d Division, serving with the 

 rank of Captain. Possibilities of ftirther service, higher promotion, or, on 

 the other hand, death or woimds on the battle field, were cut short by an 

 attack of typhoid malaria which so incapacitated him that he returned 

 home in 1863, his career in the army ended. 



The next landmark in Sttirtevant's life is a course in the Harvard 

 Medical School from which he received a degree in 1866. But, possessed 

 of a degree from one of the leading medical colleges in the country, he did 

 not begin the practice of medicine, and, in fact, never followed the profession. 

 We may assume, however, that the training in a medical school txomed 

 his attention to science, for, possibly, the best science in American insti- 

 tutions at this time was to be found in a few leading schools of medicine. The 

 year following the completion of the medical course was spent with his 

 brother Thomas in Boston. 



In 1867, E. Lewis, Joseph N. and Thomas L. Sturtevant purchased 

 land at South Framingham, Massachusetts. The farm soon became famous, 

 under the name " Waushakum Farm," for a series of brilliant experiments 

 in agriculttire which are still models in experimental acumen and con- 

 scientious execution. Here, almost at once, E. Lewis Sturtevant began 

 the foundation of a great agricultural and botanical library, one possibly 

 not surpassed in these fields of science by any other private collection, 

 while, as it was eventually developed, for Prelinnean works it is still unsur- 

 passed by any other American library. Here, too, almost at once, Stvirte- 

 vant started the studies of cultivated plants recorded in this volume. 



