TWENTY-SIXTH SESSION. 
39 
recting the evils attending erroneous and fraudulent nomenclature and 
description. 
The State experiment stations, as illustrated in the Bulletin 49 of Arkansas, 
could greatly aid the reformation, by working up the varieties in the States 
respectively. 
The general inauguration of such catalogue work, in connection with the 
present recommended conformity to the rules of the American Pomological 
Society on nomenclature, would be a large blessing in many ways to Ameri- 
can Pomology. 
The National Catalogue should also contain the select recommended lists 
of the American Pomological Society, for each particular region of the coun- 
try, and also the different State Horticultural Societies’ lists where such 
have been adopted and kept revised up to the times. 
We no longer have a Charles Downing to re’vise and publish “Fruits and 
Fruit Trees of America.” We have as yet no “Cyclopedia of American Hor- 
ticulture,” but we hope we' soon shall have it, as Prof. L. H. Bailey has 
undertaken it, and he does nothing by halves. But. such works are not 
planned to meet the broad popular want that I have had in mind, to educate 
and control the masses in horticultural nomenclature. It must not be volum- 
inous, nor expensive, but must be clear, concise, accurate, pointing out 
conspicuously the essential differences of similar varieties, and the most 
determinative characters in all. No individual can find profit in such a work, 
nor afford to collect and arrange such a vast multitude of facts, and if he 
could arrange an adequate catalogue, he could not long continue it. So if we 
ever have it the government must furnish it. 
Mr. S. B. Parsons: I am perhaps more directly interested in the nomen- 
clature of ornamental plants that of fruits but, though my experience has been 
more in ornamental plants, it may apply to the question here. The point is 
as to priority; and the question arises, what publication is required to secure 
it. Relating to ornamental plants, injustice has been done in many cases, 
because the publication has been confined to botanical societies. Some 
twenty-five years ago there were sent to this country, by a gentleman who 
had lived a long time in Japan (Dr. Hall), several plants which were of great 
value. One was a double flowering apple, and the nurseryman to whom it 
was given by Dr. Hall to propagate called it Malus Halleana. It was also 
presented by Dr. Hall to an amateur and the friends of that gentleman 
named it ‘ Malus Parlcmani. It was cultivated by him, for he was a great 
lover of plants. Justice would have required that the naming of the plant 
should have been made by those who had published it the most widely. I 
am very glad to hear the suggestion made here to constitute, as the authority, 
the published catalogue of any nurseryman. There is the first publication, 
and that should constitute priority. 
In another case a magnolia called Magnolia parviflora (which, I think, had 
been sent by Dr. Hall in the same shipment with the other) was cultivated, 
and copies of the nurseryman’s catalogue in which it was placed were sent 
to Europe. It was known fo England as Magnolia parviflora, but it was not 
found in the botanical publications of England or in botanical publications 
anywhere. Many years later it was named by one of the societies Magnolia 
Watsoni. It bore a beautiful flower but not the name which justly should 
have been given it. Then came the Magnolia Halleana, which was grown and 
published by the same nurseryman, but it was not known in Europe, although 
first seen in Asia by Fortune and named by him Magnolia stellata. 
