Excerpt from The Phytologist, Vol. 5: A Popular Botanical Miscellany

The Phytologist never was successful as a commercial specula tion: the candid and impartial tone of the reviews, mostly written bv men of the highest botanical standing, prevented this. The botani cal public is a very small public, and a very literary public; and to secure its favour you must laud A with a sort of monthly jubilate, you must conceal the blunders of B, you must insert the cauticities of C and the high-sounding nothings of D. An Editor of any feeling winces under such restrictions; an Editor of any truthfulness abhors such restrictions an Editor of any spirit throws off such restrictions. What is the consequence A, B, C and D refuse to write for you, and refuse in a dignified manner, as men who have a right to dictate; they write to each other, they write to strangers, to E, F, G - Z, whose names they observe as contributors, and state the withdrawal of their patronage, and their regret that E, F, G - Z should still continue to write in such a Journal. So A - Z all Withdraw their assistance, as far as writing is concerned, and leave only the outsiders to contribute. The effect is soon obvious: the quality of the article is deteriorated, because the producers are incompetent. A, with glittering eyes, writes to B, his old opponent, deeply regretting the evident deteriora tion, B passes the plaint on to C, with additions; and so it goes down to Z. The next step is to apprise the Editor that Unless better matter is given they must all decline to read the Phytologist they regret-people doing either an unjust or unkind thing always regret they regret their indisposition to purchase what gives them so little information. They cease to take it. Still, the Phytologist' crawls on, like the poor tortoise whose brains were cleared out by a. Cruel experimenter, until an event occurs beyond the reach of human skill or human ingenuity, and the only tie between the Phytologist and its proprietor is broken.

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