24 ©r. JHanassd) (fuller. 



expected, that, in this beginning, numerous miftakes fhould 

 not be made. It could not poffibly have been otherwife. 

 There is ftill evidence enough of the author's genius, 

 which perhaps needed only opportunity and encourage- 

 ment to anticipate a*part of what botany now owes to a 

 Nuttall, a Torrey, and a Gray. The " Account " was 

 favorably received by other botanifts of the time, both in 

 this country and abroad. In a letter of Muhlenberg to 

 Cutler, dated 9th February, 1791, the former fays, " Not 

 till a few months ago, I was favored with the firft volume 

 of the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and 

 Sciences, printed at Bofton, 1785. Amongft other valua- 

 ble pieces, I found your f Account of Indigenous Vegeta- 

 bles, botanically arranged;' with which I was infinitely 

 pleafed, as this was the firft work that gives a fyftematical 

 account of New-England plants. Being a great friend to 

 botany, and having ftudied it in my leifure-hours upwards* 

 of fourteen years in Pennfylvania, I know the difficulty of 

 arranging the American plants according to the Linnean 

 fyftem; and I was always eager to hear of fome gentleman 

 engaged in fimilar refearches, that, by joining hands, we 

 might do fomething towards enlarging American Bota- 

 ny. . . . This is the reafon why I intrude upon your leifure- 

 hours, and crave for your acquaintance and friendfhip." 1 

 Drs. Withering and Stokes, of England, were other cor- 

 refpondents of Cutler, and furnifhed him with important 

 obfervations upon his printed Memoir, befides fpecimens; 



1 Mss. Cutler, penes me. 



