DURING THE LAST HALF CENTURY. 125 



has been prepared in recent years with valuable notes by 

 Professor Tuckerman, and Higginson in a letter written 

 from Salem in 1629-30 (Mass. Hist. Coll., Vol. I, p. 

 121) speaks of the "Flowering Mulberry," or Raspberry, 

 and "Chervil," or Sweet Cicely, as growing near Salem 

 in places, where certainly, until a very few years, these 

 interesting historical plants still flourished. None of 

 these writers can, however, be considered as Essex 

 County botanists, and it is not until the close of the 

 American Revolution that we find any serious or scientific 

 study of the plants of the county. Manasseh Cutler of 

 Hamilton, after his varied services as revolutionary chap- 

 lain, lawyer, pastor, doctor, reformer and pioneer, found 

 time to prepare in 1783-4, as the title of his paper, says : 

 " An account of some of the vegetable productions grow- 

 ing in this part of America, botanically arranged." This 

 was published in the first volume of the " Memoirs of the 

 American Academy of Arts and Sciences" which was 

 printed in 1785, where some three hundred and fifty 

 species of flowering plants were described and several 

 important scientific points suggested which have since been 

 adopted in botanical treatises. It was his intention to 

 extend this work, and several manuscript volumes are 

 now in existence prepared toward this end. Dr. Cutler's 

 paper bears the date of presentation Jan. 26, 1784, and, 

 therefore, we are not only celebrating to-day the semi- 

 centennial anniversary of the first organization formed in 

 Essex Country for the study of botany and kindred sub- 

 jects, but the full centennial anniversary of the presenta- 

 tion of the first work upon the flora of Essex County by 

 the first Essex County botanist. 



Following Cutler came Drs. George Osgood and An- 

 drew Nichols : the former contributed notes for Bigelow's 

 " Florula Bostoniensis," and the latter delivered, in 1816, 



ESSEX INST. BULLETIN, VOL. XVI. 9 



