Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/356

 350 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

nomenclatorial hlBtory of this tree is considered by some to have had its beginning.

In order to contrast the botanical workmanship of JefiFerson with that of Marshall^ I will read the description in the ^'Arbnstnm Amer- icanum '' p. 69^ on which Marshall has received credit for first introduc- ing the pecan to science :

8. Juglans pecan. The Pecan or Illinois Hickory.

This tree is said to grow plenty in the neighborhood of the niinois Biver, and other parts to the Westward. The young trees raised from these nuts, much resemble our young Pig-nut Hickories. The nuts are small and thin shelled.

To my mind Marshall's description fails to distinguish the pecan plant from the pig-nut hickory he mentions, while the name proposed by him is left so nearly nude that its title to priority is doubtful. The earlier, clean-cut^ adequate diagnosis by Jefferson, can only on biblio- graphic technicality fail to secure for him the credit of being the first scientific sponsor for the pecan.

As a matter of fact, the pecan had been known to several American botanists almost twenty-five years before either of these books appeared. Colonel Bouquet obtained them at Pittsburgh and gave them to John Bartram, who seems to have sent them to several of his correspondents. Peter CoUinson and John St. Clair almost certainly received some in 1760 or 1761. Since at that time Jefferson was still at the Belinda Burwell-Sukey Potter stage, he could hardly have been interested in the interchange of letters between John Bartram and Peter Collinson pro- duced by Colonel Bouquet's ^' seven hard, stony seeds shaped some- thing like an acorn." It seems probable that Collinson showed these puzzling nuts to his friend, James Gordon, a prominent nurseryman living near London, ^om the generic name of the Loblolly bay, Gor- donia, commemorates. The result amuses Peter, who writes to his friend John :

I do laugh at Gordon, for he guesses them to be a species of Hickory.

Then he continues, this time in the vein of true prophesy.

Perhaps I may be laughed at in turn, for I think they may be what I wish, seeds of the Bonduc tree, (Kentucky coffee tree), which thou picked up in thy rambles on the Ohio.

Characteristically enough, Jefferson throughout his correspondence which turned not rarely on this nut, consistently refers to it as the paccan or Illinois nut. In France where he represented the United States in a diplomatic capacity, we find him enthusiastically introduc- ing it to the Frenchmen. Writing from Paris on January 3, 1786, to his Philadelphia friend, Francis Hopkinson, the early American song writer and signer of the Declaration of Independence, after indicating a number of errands to be done for him, Jefferson says.

The third commission is more distant. It is to procure me two or three hundred paecan-nuts from the Western country. I expect they can always be

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