PREFACE. 
It is due to the good will, provident care and matured consideration of 
the Honorable Commissioner of Agriculture, T. F. P. Allison, that this 
treatise is issued by his Department. 
The Commissioner was aware of the fact that, in the neighboring State 
of North Carolina, for some years, an extensive and profitable trade had 
been carried on by collecting native Medicinal Plants, and I was consulted 
by him as to the feasibility of a like enterprise in our State. I was much 
pleased to be able conscientiously to answer his question in the affirmative, 
and accepted his proposition to prepare this work, which is intended to 
bring to public notice the commercial value of the wild growing Medicinal 
Plants of the State of Tennessee, and to encourage capable and enter- 
prising persons to engage in an intelligent, honorable and profitable busi- 
ness, thus utilizing one of our natural resources. 
In view of the repleteness of our territory with medicinal plants, and 
their enormous consumption at home and abroad, I have often regretfully 
remarked upon the neglect of our people to realize a revenue from a 
source so patent and accessible. Freedom from preliminary investments, 
absence of competition and burdensome taxation, leave the field free for 
every one. 
Another advantage is the optional expansion or interruption of which 
this business admits. It may be commenced on a small scale, carried on 
at one’s leisure and gradually enlarged to great dimensions. 
Activity and acute business talent are widely spread qualities, but are of 
no avail in this instance without previous instruction in elementary botany, 
such as ought to be taught in every high school or college. Those pos- 
sessed of a liberal education can, in the absence of a teacher, by the 
study of Gray’s botanical text-books, soon acquire as much proficiency in 
plant analysis as is needed to make the “ Key to the Families’’ available. 
The glossary, which definitely explains the terms used in the description 
