18 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB 
It was in the fall of 1888, too, that the Club began to hold 
meetings twice instead of once each month. At first one meeting 
was called the “regular” one and the other Ше “adjourned” one, 
but at the end of the following year (December 10, 1889) a con- 
stitutional amendment made the distinction unnecessary. 
During the decade, 1880 to 1889, the Bulletin had more than 
doubled in size, the Memoirs had been begun, and the active mem- 
bership of the Club had increased to more than twice its former 
size. Insufficiency of funds interfered with the development of 
the Club’s activities then as it has ever since; but this very need 
of financial aid furnished a stimulus to further effort. 
In January, 1890, Hon. Addison Brown was elected president. 
Unlike his predecessors, he was never a professional botanist, but 
as an amateur had long devoted as much time to his favorite 
science as could be spared from the responsibilities of his judicial 
career. He had been vice-president for many years, even during 
Thurber’s presidency, and his elevation to the highest office in the 
gift of the Club was but a recognition of his faithful interest in its 
welfare. His services in this office were retained for fifteen years, 
and terminated only by his insistence upon retirement. 
From the beginning of the year 1889, Nathaniel Lord Britton, 
then instructor in geology and botany (there was at that time no 
department of botany) at Columbia University, was the editor-in- 
chief of the publications of the Club, and his invaluable services 
in that capacity continued for nine years. The Bulletin had long 
held a conspicuous place in American botany, and its prestige was 
now further strengthened. The reputation of the Club and its 
editor grew together, and interacted upon each other. Professor 
Lucien Marcus Underwood, Dr. Britton's successor as professor 
of botany at Columbia, also followed him, two years later, as 
editor, and so served for five years, 1898 to 1902; the present speak- 
er's first two years of editorship, 1903 and 1904, coinciding with 
the last two years of the presidency of Judge Brown. 
The summer of 1891 was made notable in our history by the 
organization of the Scientific Alliance of New York, with the 
Torrey Botanical Club as one of its constituent societies. This 
coóperative scheme proved of mutual advantage. The Club 
benefited by it no less than the others, and remained a member 
throughout the sixteen years of the Alliance's continuance. 
