HOFFMANN: FLORA OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY. 181 



Manual of Botany, followed in 1818 by the much enlarged second edi- 

 tion. In this edition is the first description of Lonicera hirsuta, found 

 by one of Eaton's pupils " two miles west of the college." This species 

 was later found in Vermont, New York, and westward, but in no other 

 stations in Massachusetts. Moreover, Eaton's station was lost sight 

 of until 1920, over one hundred years after its original discovery, when 

 the writer had the pleasure of findihg a flourishing colony of plants 

 probably in the same locality that Eaton referred to. 



Eaton made occasional references in his Manual to definite localities 

 in Berkshire, which represent either his own knowledge of the County 

 or information acquired from his pupils or from Dewey. He refers in 

 particular to the activity of Dr. E. Emmons, who was his pupil. 



Eaton must have had unusual power to arouse interest and even 

 enthusiasm for scientific study. There is a tradition in Williamstown, 

 for which I am indebted to Professor S. F. Clarke, that after his lec- 

 tures on botany, the loafers in the village taverns when meeting in the 

 evening discussed the new flowers that they had found. Eaton was 

 not so accomplished a botanist as Dewey, but probably a more inspir- 

 ing teacher. 



In 1824 Eaton went to Troy, there to found the Polytechnic School, 

 and in 1827 Dewey took charge of a school in Pittsfield. The latter 

 still worked at the genus Carex, and doubtless kept up his interest in 

 Berkshire plants, but the period of active botanical work on the flora 

 of the County carried on by resident botanists was practically over. 

 The collections in the County from that time to the present were made 

 by botanists from the centers of scientific activity, chiefly from Boston 

 and its vicinity, although a sheet of Thelypteris Goldiana in the her- 

 barium of the Boston Society of Natural History collected in Williams- 

 town by Torrey, but bearing no date, testifies to the presence in the 

 County of that distinguished botanist. Oakes, also, visited the County, 

 probably on the occasion of his trip to western Vermont. Sheets 

 from Pittsfield and Williamstown bearing his name as collector are 

 in the herbarium of the Boston Society of Natural History. They 

 must have been collected prior to 1848, the date of Oakes' death. In 

 1858 William Boott was collecting Carex Schweinitzii in Williamstown, 

 as sheets in the Gray Herbarium testify. J. W. Robbins in 1864 

 collected Potamogeton alpinus in Richmond. In 1877 the modern 

 period of botanical work in the County may be said to have begun, 

 inaugurated by the first visit of Judge J. R. Churchill to the County. 



