Norton,-The Botanical Survey of Maine


Society appears to have been the medium which held his attention
and led up to the shaping of the Botanical Survey.
   The duties of the secretary of the latter brought him into corre-
 spondence with Dr. Ezekiel Holmes,I who seems to have become his
 valued advisor.
   Replying to a letter from Dr. Young of February 6, 1839, Dr.
 Holmes wrote as follows:
 Augusta (H. R.) Feb. 14, 1839.
 Mr. Aaron Young
                 Secretary of the Bangor Nat. History Society.
         Dear Sir
                        Yours of the 6th., was duly received, informing
me that I have been elected an Honorary member of your Society.
  Allow me, Sir, through you to express my sense of gratitude to your
Society for the honor conferred upon me by them. The study of Natural
History is the learning the laws of nature as laid down by Omnipotence
Himself & the application of the facts discovered by the scouts have con-
tributed largely to the civilization of man & the amelioration of society.
  You have begun well, let your labors be known to the world. Allow me
to suggest that you lay out some ground work & by means of the press,
let your light shine out among the people of the State. If you feel modest
suppose you confine yourselves to the city of Bangor and vicinity & next
summer publish a Flora of Bangor.
  It is very probable that you will find nothing new-but what has been
found and described many times before-What then? Would not a
work emanating from your Society, containing accurate but familiar
descriptions of the plants to be found at your doors, and around your
fields & put into the hands of your children & young people stimulate
them to the study of Botany much more than a large volume containing
concise & technical descriptions of plants of North America? Perhaps I
am intruding by offering suggestions unasked. Excuse me and accept
my best wishes for the success of your Society.
                                   Very respectfully yours,
                                                E. Holmes.
  Four years later, 1843, while domiciled in Bangor and a member of
the firm of McRuer and Young, Druggists, Aaron ventured upon the
publication, in the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier, of a work bearing
the title suggested by Dr. Holmes.
  The Flora of Bangor; a description of the plants of Bangor and vicinity,
with their generic and specific characters, places of growth and time of
flowering. By Aaron Young, Jr.
  The copy seen had been clipped from the columns of the Whig and
Courier and pasted on sheets of octavo size. Neither the sheets nor
the species were numbered, hence it is not entirely certain that none
  i Dr. Holmes was born in Kingston, Massachusetts, August 24, 1801. A biography,
with portrait of Dr. Holmes, was published by Dr. N. T. True in the Tenth Annual
Report of the Secretary of the Maine Board of Agriculture, 1865, 207-226.


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