13 



and buttercups show, they flourish here and increase to 

 an extent which it would be difficult for them to exceed 

 elsewhere. The study of these introduced plants might 

 be called historical botany and should not be confounded 

 with the study of the natural distribution and changes of 

 plants. The early colonists came to establish a home : 

 they did not come for gold, diamonds, or lead even, and in 

 coming severed old home-ties and connections. That 

 the fruit and other vegetable productions of the new land 

 were among the first things to which attention was given, 

 the records of early writers amply testify. We are apt 

 to consider the men of two hundred and fifty years ago 

 as a stern company ; yet, besides the fruits and plants 

 which might possess economic or medicinal value, this 

 latter use being ever uppermost in the minds of botanical 

 explorers of that day, they did not overlook the curious 

 or the beautiful. 



The earlier accounts tell of the gardens that were al- 

 most immediately established upon the settlement of the 

 country, and invoices of the articles to be sent to the col- 

 onists from the managers in Europe contain such things 

 as the seeds of grains, stone fruits, quince, apple, pear, 

 woadwax, barberry, etc. Besides these, living plants 

 must have been sent out from Europe, as is shown by the 

 record of "Our Ancient Pear Trees" (Robert Manning 

 in Proc. Am. Pom. Soc, 1875). 



Some of these plants purposely introduced have failed 

 to prove of use, or their time of usefulness has gone by, 

 and they have been suflFered to run wild, and at the same 

 time a hundred others have like " stowaways " come unin- 

 vited. They have been introduced among the seeds of 

 useful plants, in packing material, and as garden flowers. 

 Many of .the introduced species still remain restricted to 

 certain localities, and others, although more widely dis- 



