1864.] secretary's report. 75 



the transfer of the Library and for the two that have elapsed succeeding that 

 event, discloses the subjoined state of facts. Number of volumes taken out: 



In 1860 72 I In 1862 1U 



In 186) 64 1 In 1863 133 



All which, as a general thing, were well cared for and returned in good 

 condition. 



Since your last annual meeting the Department of Agriculture at Washing- 

 ton has been put -in complete operation, thereby superseding the Agricultural 

 Bureau of the Patent Office with which this Society has long cultivated rela- 

 tions of greater or less reciprocal advantage. That bureau, during its exist- 

 ence, disseminated, among much rubbish, many valuable seeds. For the 

 "Large Hollow-Crowned Parsnip" alone, your Secretary, since its first distri- 

 bution, has been obliged to refuse repeated applications. While it will require 

 longer experience to determine how i'ar the interests of horticulture are to be 

 advanced by the radical change of agencies at the Federal Capital, it may not 

 be wholly unprofitable to take an account of the benefits realized within the 

 year. Late in the winter of 1862-3, your Secretary received from the new 

 Department a "Catalogue of the Plants, Bulbs, Tubers, &c., for Distribution 

 from the United States Propagating Garden." Forwarded under the frank of 

 Commissioner Newton, as it was prepared by his direction, its transmission 

 was construed into an invitation to this Society to specify the " Plants, Bulbs, 

 Tubers, &c.," of which it might desire specimens. Accordingly, with the 

 advice and assistance of Messrs. John Milton Earle and D. Waldo Lincoln, 

 Ex-Presidents — than whom your roll of membership could afford none more 

 competent — a list was completed and mailed to the Department. The receipt 

 of that list was acknowledged by the Department, and assurances were lavished 

 that the Society should be remembered in the spring, when alone transplanta- 

 tion could be safely ventured. In this position the matter rested for months. 

 Although spring came and went, bringing with it neither germ nor sign of life 

 from the Department, no uneasiness was felt until the Secretary chanced to 

 observe in the Gardeners' Monthly, of Philadelphia, a record of action by the 

 Society of " Fruit Growers of Eastern Pennsylvania" in grateful recognition 

 of an extensive and valuable collection of "Plants, Bulbs, Tubers, &c.," 

 received from Commissioner Newton. After consultation with some of your 

 Trustees, a letter was addressed by your Secretary to the Commissioner, citing 

 this instance in Pennsylvania, and suggesting that the climate of Massachu- 

 setts is not so severe but that it will admit of planting before June. A com- 

 munication was received in reply, dated June 22, 1863, signed William Saun- 

 ders, and covering the business card of said Saunders as " Landscape Gardener 

 and Garden Architect," with certificates to his capacity as such, in which com- 

 munication said Saunders, after professions of devotion to the welfare of the 

 Department, proceeds to reconcile us to our disappointment by the assurance 

 that he had ^^ exhausted the ivhole stock oj' plants, dtc.,'' by sending them to 

 others ; that " the stock never was valuable,^' containing " nothing of interest 



