
          Early Hort. Lit

- 2 -

”The check list I mentioned is a very modest affair, primarily intended to
assist in the purchase of books for the Department of Agriculture Library, and
arising as an outgrowth or by-product of ••• a comprehensive catalogue of botanical
literature, in the widest sense, which was founded by Mr. Frederick
V. Coville •••[and] has been carried on for some fifteen years under his authority
• •• So far as [horticultural] bibliography is concerned, my own aim
is that of collecting materials for such work, rather than an attempt to compile anything authoritative.”

The term ’’authoritative” was used in the sense of final, as there was no idea or
possibility of publication. Hence data were picked up from diverse sources, reliable
and otherwise, on titles, imprints, variations in edition, contents, questions of authorship
and other features. Many such notes were omitted when the material was edited for the loose-leaf file, but in case of works that could not be seen, many of them
had to be kept against the time when the critical points could be settled by an expert
cataloger. At one time many of the rarer works were cataloged in American libraries,
and a large proportion of those not located in this country are in the British Museum,
where we expected to complete the major portion of our defective entries.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

Most of the notes, therefore, which concern particular books or editions, are potentially 
useful to the future cataloger or bibliographer. But when all the books are
fully cataloged as they should be, many of these comments will become superfluous or incorrect, 
and will be cut out. In the end product of any bibliographical undertaking it
is better to have too few annotations than too many, which only confuse the person who
looks for a concrete fact that is not obvious in the bare entry.

In addition to notes specially relating to the literature, there is a quantity of
material that has no bearing on it, but is found here only because the list was largely
used in answering questions on the history of cultivated plants, and it was convenient
to file and use with it additional notes bearing on this topic. Some of this supplementary
matter has a more or less tenuous connection with authors who are legitimately included, 
but many notes on collectors, introducers, illustrators, great patrons of botany,
and miscellaneous ’’firsts" of the 16th to 18th centuries, are found here solely because
this alphabet of authors and titles afforded the most efficient way to use them. Insofar
as they are valuable for the student of plant history, they are worth preservihg, but
in any exact concept of bibliography, they do not belong in this list.
        