REPORT OF THE EDITOR. 



• The first duty devolving upon the editor after the passage of 

 the vote establishing that office, I found to be the completion of 

 the Transactions of the Society for 1873, a small part of which 

 was then printed. Much labor was expended on the proof sheets 

 to secure correctness in the botanical and pomological names, 

 especially the names of new plants. It is believed that for cor- 

 rectness these will compare advantageously with those found in 

 the Transactions of previous years, and if perfect accuracy has 

 not been attained it must be attributed to the fact that for many 

 of these names there exists no authorit3' beyond the catalogues of 

 the European nurserymen by whose enterprise the plants have 

 been originated or introduced. 



While the work above mentioned was going on, the Saturday 

 discussions also occurred, the notes made at these meetings being 

 afterwards more fully written out and submitted to the various 

 speakers for approval, or correction if necessary. When these 

 discussions were ended for the season, I suggested to the Com- 

 mittee on Publication that it might be well to publish them im- 

 mediately, to keep alive the interest which had been awakened, as 

 well as for the reason already mentioned in the report of that 

 Committee. This suggestion was approved, and it ,was also deter- 

 mined that their typographical execution should be an improve- 

 ment upon that of the Transactions for 1873, which was far from 

 satisfactory. No attempt was made to give a verbatim report of 

 the discussions, but only to preserve their substance, which 

 was thought by the Committee to be reasonably successful. 



In the intervals between correcting the proofs of the Transac- 

 tions, and since these were published, I have, by the advice of the 

 Committee on the History of the Society, been engaged on that 

 work. Some errors in statements in the Historical Sketch of 



