THE PROGRESS OF BOTANY IN ESSEX COUNTY DURING THE 



LAST HALF CENTURY, ESPECIALLY AS INFLUENCED 



BY THE ESSEX COUNTY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY AND 



THE ESSEX INSTITUTE. 1834-1884. 



BY JOHN ROBINSON. 



ONE of our older botanists has said that the careful 

 study of the flora of a very limited region might well 

 occupy the lifetime of any person, and that the result 

 accomplished would contribute more information of real 

 value to science than any general work the same indi- 

 vidual would be likely to undertake successfully. 



This sentiment applies to the institution as well as the 

 individual. Too often we see the local scientific society 

 striving, not to emulate the spirit, but actually imitating 

 the work of state or national institutions, totally neglect- 

 ing, all the while, the more important duty of first pre- 

 senting to the public a complete exhibit of the natural 

 products of the fields, the forests, and the waters of the 

 immediate neighborhood, and of encouraging an earnest 

 study on the part of the people, especially the younger, 

 of the natural objects met in every-day life, with which it 

 is safe to say few are at all well acquainted. 



How many persons outside of a scientific class should 

 we be likely to find who could, even to-day, readily and 

 correctly give, in outline, the life-history of a single ani- 

 mal or plant ? We find many persons who are familiar 

 with the common field flowers, but how many of these 

 could tell us a word of the grasses or sedges, or, give us 

 even the common names of half the forest trees growing 

 naturally in our own county of Essex? And yet, in the 

 whole course of botanical investigation, there are no plants 



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