153 THE NUT CUITUKIST. 



by Dr. Britton. But of one thing we may rest assured, 

 and that is, Dr. Torrey would not knowingly detract 

 from, nor fail to give every man full credit for his labors 

 in any branch of natural history or elsewhere, and he 

 certainly must have known Eafinesque in all his eccen- 

 tricities and moods, for when in New York city he was^ 

 usually the guest of Dr. Torrey, and these relations con- 

 tinned for many years. 



A few of our leading botanists, having recently de- 

 cided that Rafinesque's name of Hicoria must be re- 

 stored, in deferehce to the laws of priority, and Nuttall's 

 Oarya be relegated to the position of a synonym, I hafe 

 concluded to adopt it in this work, although 1 am well 

 aware that a l^irge majority of our botanists have pro- 

 tested against this change, probably because of the con- 

 fusion it is likely to cause in the botanical literature of 

 our times. My own reason for adopting Hicoria is not 

 so much from any special reverence to the laws of prior- 

 ity, but because it is derived from a,n old American In- 

 dian name, and for all such I have a profound regard, 

 and would retain and adopt them whenever and wher- 

 ever they are at all appropriate to products indigenous 

 to this country. The hickories being purely American, 

 and unknown to Greece or Grreeks, a semi-native name 

 is all the more acceptable. It is not to be expected that 

 botanical quibbles are of any special interest to the prac- 

 tical nut calturist, for a pecan, or a shellbark hickory 

 will taste just as sweet and command as high a price in 

 market under one scientific name as another; but the 

 cultivator may have occasion to look up the botanical 

 name of his trees in some school botany, or other botan- 

 ical work, and fail to find it, in the absence of some guide 

 to the various changes that have been made in the name 

 of the genus, as well as in the name of the synonyms of 

 the different species. Then, again, propagators and 

 dealers in trees are prone to employ unfamiliar names. 



