I have mentioned my interest in botany as beginning in the winter and out of all reach either of a greenhouse or of a potted plant. But in the spring, I think that of 1828, I sallied forth one April day into the bare woods, found an early specimen of a plant in flower, peeping through dead leaves, brought it home, and with Eaton’s “Manual” without much difficulty I ran it down to its name, Claytonia Virginica. (It was really C. Caroliniana, but the two were not distinguished in that book.) I was well pleased, and went on, collecting and examining all the flowers I could lay hands on; and the rides over the country to visit patients along with my preceptor, Dr. Trowbridge, gave good opportunities. I began an herbarium of shockingly bad specimens. In autumn, going back to Fairfield for the annual course of medical lectures, I took specimens of those plants that puzzled me to Professor Hadley, who had learned some botany of Dr. Ives of New Haven, and had made a neat herbarium of the common New England and New York plants, which I studied carefully that winter. At Professor Hadley’s suggestion I opened a correspondence with Dr. Lewis C. Beck of Albany,[17] who was the botanist of the region. The next summer I collected more easily and critically. The summer after, I think, or probably the summer of 1830, I had an opportunity to make a little run to New York, being sent by Dr. Trowbridge to buy some medical books, driving in a one-horse wagon, with my own horse, ninety miles to Albany, thence by steamer to New York over night; one night there, and back next day by boat to Albany, and so driving back to Bridgewater in company with a man of business who joined me in this little expedition. I stopped to see Lewis C. Beck at Albany Academy; there I first saw a grave-looking man who I was told was Professor Henry, who had just been making a wonderful electro-magnet. I had procured from Professor Hadley a letter of introduction to Dr. Torrey, whose “Flora of the Northern United States,” vol. i., was our greatest help so far as it went, and which on that journey I bought a copy of. I took also a parcel of plants to be named. Finding my way to Dr. Torrey’s house in Charlton Street with my parcel and letter, I had the disappointment of finding that he was away at Williamstown, Massachusetts, for the summer. It was not until the next winter that at Fairfield I received a letter from Dr. Torrey, naming my plants, and inviting the correspondence which continued thence to the end of his life.