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, meee 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 suffered 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- 
