Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Gardener's Monthly, and Horticultural Advertiser, 1871, Vol. 13: Devoted to Horticulture, Arboriculture, Botany and Rural Affairs
As long as we can recollect, Syracuse, N. Y has always been a point we wished to reach. Its extensive nurseries, its wonderfully healthy trees, and the great reputation of Brown Smith for intelligence and business integrity, made a call on the firm now known as Smith, Clark Powell, a necessary part Of our ride through New York State. Lve found the firm still young, notwithstanding the length of time the busi ness has been going on. Mr. Powell is son-in law to Mr. Smith, and will be a worthy successor when the hand of time Shall tell more heavily on the senior than it has yet done.
Syracuse is a remarkably pretty town, deriv ing its chief commercial importance from its salt springs. Salt manufacture is carried on to an enormous extent, and adds largely to the wealth of the place. A very curious study for the naturalist is the salt plants Of this region; that is plants which are usually only found by the sea Shore, and are usually denominated in works on botany as marine. When the first settlers came to Syracuse, there was but one small salt spring known, and that not ?owing freely. The Indians, it is said, used this spring. It is most probable that the water from this little spring did not cover many yards, and the ma rine plants one would expect to be very few if any. N ow, since wells have been sunk, and the water pumped to the surface, of course salt streams ?ow every where. These salt water plants now abound. We had not time to note how many species could be found there; but it seemed as if one might find as many as there is in any average locality by the sea Side. But it is not set down in the works that species can originate in different places, and yet be of the same kinds. That is spontaneous generation, and it will not do, - or it is not in accordance with an other modern view, that species are the result of circumstances, the one species outgrowing from something else. The circumstances are never exactly the same in two distant localities, there fore, all individuals ii' one species tnust be emi grants from one central point. It is hard to believe all these maritime plants of Syracuse emigrants, - harder yet to suppose they are spontaneously generated, - and yet if not here at the foundation of the town, how did they come i'
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