KETROSI'ECT ix 



In the "iii:ike-np" it is an inviolable rule that wherever the book opens, au en- 

 g-raviiis will he seen. Adherence to this rule has made trouble in some cases. In one 

 instance it was necessary to have a new cut made after the forms were made up, and to 

 renumber the legends of more than one hundred pictures. The mechanical make-up 

 was in the hands of I. B. Kraybill, foreman of the composino--r<)oni of the Mt. Pleasant 

 Press, who gave the work loving and thoughtful care until, in the letter T, he was 

 called to lay down his labors. The Editor liopes that the reader will regard his memory 

 whenever tlie arrangement of the pictures is a source of satisfaction and pleasure. 



The Cyclopedia has Iteen edited in a room eigliteen feet square, kindly allowed 

 for this use by Cornell University. In this room were two long tables, which 

 allowed of the disposition of manuscripts and jjietures in deliglitful abandon; 

 the garden herbarium of Cornell University; and a large collection of books, mostly 

 loaned from the Library of Cornell University. Aside from monographs, botanical 

 manuals, local floras, horticultural handbooks, dictionaries, tlie following works were 

 on the shelves: Index Kewensis (intended to contain all species of flowering plants 

 down to 1885 — al)Out 125,000 names) ; Bentham and Hooker's Genera Plantarum ; 

 Engler and Prantl's Natiirlicheu Pflanzenfamilien ; DeCandolle's Prodromus (17 vol- 

 umes), and his Mouographias Pliancrogamarnm (9 volumes thus far); the Kew List 

 of new species introduced into cultivation between 1876 and 1896. Next iu import- 

 ance were the periodicals, containing perhaps 50,000 pictures of plants, many of them 

 colored and mostly authentic. First rank must be accorded the peerless Curtis' Bo- 

 tanical Magazine, with its 125 volumes, containing over 7,600 colored plates. Edwards' 

 Botanical Register, Loddiges' Botanical Cabinet, L'lllustration Ilorticole, Flore des 

 Serres, Paxton's Magazine, Revue liorticole and The Garden are extensive woi-ks 

 provided with colored plates, for details of which the reader may consult Vol. I, pp. 

 xvii and xviii. Less extended periodicals containing colored plates have been used, 

 as The Botanist by Maund, The Florist and Pomologist, Knowles & Westcott's Floral 

 Cabinet, Meehan's Monthly and an incomplete set of Gartenflora and Revue 

 d'Hortienlture Beige. Of horticultural periodicals not containing colored plates, the 

 Gardeners' Chronicle is a great store of botanical knowledge, being piiblished since 

 1841. It is full of botanical monographs of garden genera, and is a rich repository of 

 description of new species. A complete set of the Journal of Horticulture has Ijcen 

 available and all the pictures in its third series have been indexed. Of American 

 periodicals. Garden and Forest, American Gardening, American Florist, Florists' 

 Exchange, Florists' Review and Gardening have been very helpful. 



The three most useful bibliographical works on botany have been Pritzel's Thesau- 

 rus, Jackson's Guide to the Literature of Botany, and the Catalogue of the Kew Library. 

 About two dozen cyclopedic works were thoroughly examined and kept at hand for 

 various periods, as those of Nicholson, Mottet, Siebert and Voss; the Bois' Diction- 

 naire d'FIorticulture, Johnson's Gardener's Dictionary, Paxton's Botanical Dictionary, 

 Riimpler's Illustriertes Gartenbau - Lexikon, Loudon's Encyclopasdia of Gardening, 

 Lindley and Moore's Treasury of Botany and vai'ious editions of the prototype of 

 all such undertakings, — Philip Miller's Gardener's Dictionary. The floras of foreign 

 countries have been as indispensable as those of America. Flora CaiKmsis (-1 vols, thus 

 far), Flora Australiensis (7 vols.) and the Flora of British India (7 vols.), have been 

 used the most. On European plants, Koch's Synopsis Flora? Germanieaj et Helvetica^ 

 (lirenier & Gordon's Flore de France, Ledebour's Flora Rossica, and Bentham's 

 Illustrated Handbook of the British Flora, and others, have been constantly at hand. 



