Manasseh Cutler, LL.D. (born 1743), was minister of the Hamlet in Ipswich—afterwards incorporated as the town of Hamilton—fifty-one years, and was also a member of the Medical Society of Massachusetts. He is author of “An Account of some of the Vegetable Productions naturally growing in this part of America, botanically arranged,” which makes nearly a hundred pages of the first volume of the Memoirs of the American Academy, 1785. In the introduction to this paper, the author speaks of Canada and the Southern States having had attention given to their productions, both by some of their own inhabitants and by European naturalists; while “that extensive tract of country which lies between them, including several degrees of latitude, and exceedingly diversified in its surface and soil, seems still to remain unexplored.” He attributes the neglect, in part, to this,—“that botany has never been taught in any of our colleges,” but principally to the prevalent opinion of its unprofitableness in common life. The latter error he combats with the then important observation, that, “though all the medicinal properties and economical uses of plants are not discoverable from those characters by which they are systematically arranged, yet the celebrated Linnæus has found that the virtues of plants may be, in a considerable degree, and most safely, determined by their natural characters: for plants of the same natural class are in some measure similar; those of the same natural order have a still nearer affinity; and those of the fame genus have very seldom been found to differ in their medical virtues” (p. 397). This shows, perhaps, that Dr. Cutler appreciated (for the Italics in the just-quoted passage are his own) that adumbration of a natural system which was afforded or suggested by the artificial; and his instances—the Gramineæ, the Borraginaceæ, the Umbelliferæ, the Labiatæ, the Cruciferæ, the Malvaceæ, the Compositæ, &c.; though these are cited under the divisions, not of the natural, but of the sexual system—are still more to the point. There are other observations of interest; and the suggestion is made, that persons should collect the plants of their districts, and send them from time to time to the Academy.
Dr. Cutler was thus, possibly, the first to suggest a botanical chair in our colleges, and a general herbarium to illustrate the Flora of New England; and perhaps it was this last which led him to propose a still more important undertaking. “It has long been my intention,” he says in a letter to Prof. Swartz, of Upsal, dated 15th October, 1802, “to publish a botanical work, comprising the plants of the northern and eastern States; and [I] have been collecting materials for that purpose. But numerous avocations, and a variety of other engagements, has occasioned delay. It is, however, still my intention, if my health permits, to do it. But, at this time, far less than in years past, there is very little encouragement given here to publications of this kind.”[22]
About three hundred and seventy plants are indicated in the published “Account” of Dr. Cutler. It was not to be expected, that, in this beginning, numerous mistakes should not be made. It could not possibly have been otherwise. There is still evidence enough of the author’s genius, which perhaps needed only opportunity and encouragement to anticipate a part of what botany now owes to a Nuttall, a Torrey, and a Gray. The “Account” was favorably received by other botanists of the time, both in this country and abroad. In a letter of Muhlenberg to Cutler, dated 9th February, 1791, the former says, “Not till a few months ago, I was favored with the first volume of the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, printed at Boston, 1785. Amongst other valuable pieces, I found your ‘Account of Indigenous Vegetables, botanically arranged;’ with which I was infinitely pleased, as this was the first work that gives a systematical account of New-England plants. Being a great friend to botany, and having studied it in my leisure-hours upwards of fourteen years in Pennsylvania, I know the difficulty of arranging the American plants according to the Linnæan system; and I was always eager to hear of some gentleman engaged in similar researches, that, by joining hands, we might do something towards enlarging American Botany.... This is the reason why I intrude upon your leisure-hours, and crave for your acquaintance and friendship.”[23] Drs. Withering and Stokes, of England, were other correspondents of Cutler, and furnished him with important observations upon his printed Memoir, besides specimens; as did also Swartz, and, it appears, Payshull of Sweden. Dr. Stokes followed up his various suggestions for the improvement of the Memoir, by proposing to dedicate a plant, which he took to be new, to its author. “A plant,” he says, “like a woolly heath, and which I wished to call Cutleria ericoides, turns out to be Hudsonia ericoides. I hope, however, your herborizations may furnish a new genus for you, not likely to be disturbed.”—Letters of Stokes to Cutler, from “Feb. 14 ’91, to Aug. 17, ’93.”[24]
But Dr. Cutler’s printed memoir on the plants of New England is much surpassed in interest by his manuscript volumes of descriptions, still extant. These manuscript volumes commence with “Book I., 1783,” and continue, so far as I have seen them, to 1804. The late Mr. Oakes possessed six of these books; and two were given to me by my valued friend, the late Dr. T. W. Harris. They are generally entitled, “Descriptions and Notes on American Indigenous Plants,” and contain a vast number of observations and analyses, sometimes accompanied by pen-and-ink sketches. This was evidently the material accumulated for the author’s Flora above mentioned; and the following extracts will serve to show that he was in many respects qualified to undertake such a work. Thus, in describing the several hickories, he points out those differences from Juglans, upon which Nuttall afterwards constituted his genus Carya. Again, in the same volume,—that for 1789,—there is a N. Gen. Anonymos, minutely described in several pages, which is no other than Thesium umbellatum, L., afterwards distinguished by Nuttall as his genus Comandra. Again, under Anonymos, Yellow-Sandbind, there is a full description of what Nuttall after named Hudsonia tomentosa. The same volume shows that the author had anticipated Prof. Gray in referring Orchis fimbriata, as it was called by Pursh and other botanists, to O. psychodes, L.; and the remark is also made that O. lacera Michx.,—which Muhlenberg and our other writers had mistakenly referred to O. psychodes, till Dr. Gray corrected the error,—“must be a new species,” which it then certainly was. Again, there is another Anomolos described at length, which is the same afterwards constituted by Nuttall his genus Microstylis. So Campanula humida (Cutler mss.) is what Pursh designated, long after, C. aparinoides. Again, in another volume (for 1800), he anticipates Pursh by proposing for our water-shield the name Brasenia ovalifolia; and, in yet another, he is before Bigelow in describing as a new species what the latter, many years later, published as Prunus obovata. This may suffice to indicate the merits of the botanist of Ipswich Hamlet. A little shrub-willow, with clean, shining leaves, and modest catkins,—inhabiting, almost everywhere, the alpine regions of the White Mountains, and gathered by him there, before any other botanist had penetrated those solitudes,—still reminds us of his name, which deserves to be remembered by his countrymen.
After Cutler, there appeared nothing of importance[25] on our botany, till the present elder school of New-England botanists—a school characterized by the names of an Oakes, a Boott, and an Emerson—was founded, now more than forty years ago, by the classical Florula of Bigelow.
1672 edition by Josselyn.
New-Englands