1891.] ESSAYS. 131 



The Indians, as a race, have not progressed much in their 

 botanical knowledge since the days before the European dis- 

 covery of America. The aggregate knowledge of the doctors 

 or learned men of the Cherokee Indians, according to the state- 

 ment of Mr. James Morncy who has recently spent much time 

 in studying them, only embraces about eight hundred species of 

 plants, and no one doctor knows the names of more than three 

 hunch'ed species. They have no names for even the most 

 beautiful or noticeable flowers unless the pkmts are used as food 

 or medicine. They are, as four hundred years ago, without 

 sentiment for the fragrance or symmetry of the flowers, and yet 

 the Cherokee Indians have dwelt in the regions of western 

 North Carolina. 



Whatever benefits may have resulted to horticulture, are 

 found to be due mostly to the researches, industries, inventions 

 and literature of the white men of the present century. The 

 experiment stations in the difierent States for testing the peculiar 

 conditions required for the growth of individual plants and for 

 conducting microscopical investigations in regard to the causes 

 which destroy them ; the careful studies made by such enthu- 

 siastic botanists as Drs. Asa Gray and John Torrey ; the exten- 

 sive researches of such interested men as Dr. J. Triana of New 

 Granada, who explored the flora of his native country for ten 

 years amidst so many discouragements from his own govern- 

 ment, and who then established himself in France for the 

 purpose of describing his collections ; and the experiments tried 

 by hundreds of horticulturists, show the awakening of this 

 American people to an earnest desire for acquiring knowledge 

 and then communicating it to the world at large. While we 

 may have imported plant specimens, other countries have been, 

 and are importing from us, until they have already naturalized 

 our elm, captured the Peruvian cinchona, adopted our Kalmia 

 as one of their most highly prized plants, and have even dis- 

 puted the Ainerican origin of the pine-apple. 



Our facilities for research are constantly increasing. In a 

 late number of Lippincott's Magazine, a writer mourns that we 

 have no American Kcw, and earnestly insists that New York 



