REPORT OF SECRETARY AND LIBRARIAN. 323 



ber has been received, and a copy of its predecessor, the Album 

 Van Eeden, has also been obtained. 



It has ever been the purpose of those charged with the selec- 

 tion of books for purchase to acquire all American works suited 

 to this library, and in pursuance of this purpose we secured at an 

 auction sale a copy of the American Flora or History of Plants 

 and Wild Flowers, with colored plates, by A. B. Strong, M.D., 

 published in New York, 1848 to 1851. The first volume of the 

 Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada and the 

 British Possessions, by Nathaniel Lord Britton, Ph.D., and Hon. 

 Addison Brown, published at New York daring the present year, 

 has also been received. In another class of books, L'Horticulteur 

 Franqais, in twenty-one volumes, with many colored plates, pub- 

 lished at Paris from 1851 to 1873, is a valuable acquisition. 



The culture of Nuts of various kinds is beginning to attract 

 much attention. Previously to this year we possessed only one 

 or two German books on this subject, but this year Ave have 

 added one from the Division of Pomology in the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, on Nut Culture in the United 

 States, with colored and plain plates, and the widow of our 

 lamented Corresponding Member, Andrew S. Fuller, has pre- 

 sented a copy of his book, The Nut Culturist, published since 

 his death. 



We are indebted to one of our members, Dr. William P. Bolles, 

 for several valuable German works on Medical and Physiological 

 Botany. A Manuscript Journal of horticultural operations, kept 

 in Dorchester from 1822 to 1836, presented by Mrs. J. F. Pratt, 

 is a unique book. It would he interesting to know who was the 

 writer, but the book affords no clew to his name. 



The extraordinary interest which has grown up in the last 

 two years in Edible Mushrooms has led to a much more general 

 use of our books on that subject, by members and others, and it is 

 a source of gratification that these inquirers have found the 

 Library so well equipped to meet them. It is to be hoped — and 

 we trust it will be so — that when a similar interest shall be 

 awakened in any other subject connected with the work of the 

 Society, the Library may be found equally well prepared, and that 

 books which may now appear comparatively useless may then be 

 found of the highest value. 



In estimating the value of this library it should never be for- 



