20 



PINACEJ3. 



My present enterprise, however, is not to found a system, "but to 

 form a classification ; so I leave the systems as I found them, in an 

 awful disorder : having always observed that the best systems and the 

 most experienced systematizers were those who dealt with ^^ature's 

 vegetable products in a liberal way. I have also invariably found that 

 the best, because the most careful, observers have been those whose 

 vision was not clouded by the opacities of theory, and whose minds 

 were not distorted by pedantry : for to hair-brained speculators and 

 pedantic systematists, and the small fry who followed as their suit, — the 

 species-mongers, — are we indebted for heterogeneous and gratuitous 

 assumptions, and unsustained and contradictory assertions, which have 

 so obscured the classification and nomenclature of the firs and pines, that 

 at the present time their classification is chaos and their nomenclature 

 cant. 



Finding, then, the entirety of the literary matter appertaining to my 

 present subjects in such a disordered condition, I will endeavour not 

 to add to these already very discordant elements by making obscurity 

 still more obscure ; but confine myself to a compendium — a common- 

 sense classification of them ; tolerating as much as possible of this 

 chaotic confusion, and altering or putting it in order only where 

 imperatively demanded alike by truth and common-sense : as the most 

 convenient vehiculum the status quo admitteth of wherein for practical 

 suggestions to be rendered clear and intelligible. I am hereby under 

 the necessity of apprising my readers that if I seem at any time, while 

 treating of the classification and nomenclature of other authors, and 

 misnomers of sundry pedants, to write inconsistently with statements I 

 have to make when I am dealing with the notions of others, the 

 incongruity is not mine. 



As a matter of course, before we can cook our hare, we must first 

 catch it ; " so, before we can classify or name our firs and pines, we 

 must first secure them : therefore, to begin at the beginning of classifi- 

 cation, I am, as it were, in duty bound to give at least a retrospective 

 summary of the subjects to be classed j and this leads me back to their 

 origin. "The origin of species" is a nice theme for theorizers ; and many 

 are the nice theories which this theme has originated : but although 

 many theories have already been promulgated and revealed, science has 

 done and is doing much to throw light upon this complex subject ; 

 yet, it cannot be denied that the whole arena of the matter is still 

 enveloped in the hazy atmosphere of philosophical speculation. 



That most erudite scholar and original philosopher — Darwin, in his 



