1895.] ESSAYS. 87 



Inquirer. I would like to inquire what the Professor means by 

 " upland meadow "? "I mean what is sometimes called pasture." 



" I never found any Quaking Grass on high land ; I have only seen 

 it in low land, where it is damp and moist." 



Chairman. It is unfortunate for the chair that he does not know 

 some of the faces that are present, who could tell us something. I 

 hope that they will have something to say without being called upon. 



Dr. Hodge. I don't know whether I belong here or not, but I will 

 try to make a few remarks. I am exceedingly glad to have the 

 opportunity to thank Mr. Jackson for the book which I have read 

 with so much interest this winter, and I encore Mr. Draper's remark 

 on getting out a book of that kind. When your President called for 

 a botanist I certainly could not respond, and I am very sorry for it, 

 but there are not very man}' botanists in the country that I know of, 

 and whether the fault is in the way that we are trained in the schools, 

 or whether the fault is in ourselves I won't stop to say. But I look 

 upon this movement which Mr. Jackson has been forwarding in 

 Worcester as one which gives to my mind the greatest hope of 

 making everybody a botanist, and advancing to them the knowledge 

 of the flowers and plants that they are treading on every day. 



I remember the first time that I ever saw Kalmia. It was after I 

 came to Baltimore for the purpose of finishing my university course, 

 and the people there said I ought to go out and see the mountain 

 laurel, and told me the place where I could find it. I don't think I 

 was ever more surprised. I went out into the woods in the suburbs 

 of Baltimore, and simply forgot all about lectures, laboratories, and 

 life in general. I have often wondered why we don't have more of it 

 in our gardens and walks. It is a beautiful bush. The specimens 

 we see in the pastures are torn by the cattle and the boys. 



It seems to me that we go a great way for shrubbery, which in the 

 point of interest does not come within miles and miles of our native 

 flora. 



There is another meaning to the botanical movement which Mr. 

 Jackson has made here, and that is, that the commonplace common 

 things, if we only stop and look at them, are often in reality the 

 most beautiful things we can find in the flora ; and the fact that they 

 are common, if our attention is not called to them in some such way, 

 makes us overlook them. If we would only stop and look at them, 

 we should see beauty in them which would make life have a greater 

 meaning, instead of our simply passing over everything in the world 

 about us. 



