218 BEGINS CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN PLANTS 



mens as I remember giving a few of them to Professor Hincks, of 

 Toronto University, for identification that year. In 1861, I 

 moved to Belleville and made large collections there and, that 

 year, I commenced to form a herbarium. The next year, I 

 married. 



Up to this time, I was merely a collector of insects, of minerals 

 and of fossils and, like other young people, considered myself 

 quite an authority on things I knew very little about. This 

 year, the Murchason Club was established, at Belleville, and I at 

 once became a member. There was a great variety of subjects 

 taken up, as no two members studied the same subject, so that 

 I became Botanist of the club and, as I look back, I have no re- 

 membrance of giving time to any other subject. Curiously 

 enough, Mr. William Smith, of Norwich, England, one of the 

 members, is still living and I correspond with him after all these 

 years. The meetings of the club added a great deal to my know- 

 ledge but my whole mind was given to my school and botany. 

 The year I was married, I began to put together ideas that I had 

 formed before this time. In that year, I commenced to write 

 my catalogue of Canadian Plants and I think that the note-books, 

 or some of them, in which I wrote the names, are still in existence 

 amongst my books and pamphlets. The plan I adopted was 

 actually the way in which I carried out the catalogue afterwards 

 published of the whole of the plants of the Dominion. At this 

 time, every list of plants that was published, I copied into my 

 notes and could see at a glance where any species had been found. 

 I remember getting Borgeaus' list of the species that he collected 

 on the prairie and in the Rocky Mountains while he was Botanist 

 to Palliser's Expedition. This list I got from Dr. Gray. Judge 

 Logie of Hamilton published a list and I incorporated it and Dr. 

 Fowler of New Brunswick, published a list and I incorporated 

 it also. At this time, Mr. Barnston, of Montreal, and Dr. Law- 

 son, Professor of Botany at Queen's University, Kingston, became 

 my intimate friends and assisted me in many ways. Dr. Lawson 

 established the Botanical Society of Canada at Queen's and I 

 became a member. There I met Dr. Robert Bell, Dr. John Bell, 

 and Mr. A. T. Drummond, who is still living. They were then 



