Norton,-The Botanical Survey of Maine


literary emporium in New York some person would see it who would like
to secure sets of the work. If you are willing to trust it I will have it
deposited at Wiley's (of the late firm of Wiley and Putnam) and instruct
a neighbor of mine who is in the store to show it where there may be a
chance of its being appreciated.
   I enclose a note to Governor Dana which may meet your views.
                                    Yours truly
                                              John Torrey.
   You can read the letter to the Governor then seal and deliver it. Did
 you notice a little error in your title page, synonymon for synonyms?
   With the termination of the Botanical Survey, which he plainly
 aspired to finish, and the lack of subscribers to the Flora of Maine, Dr.
 Young appears to have abandoned the field of botany. He was not
 embittered by the collapse of his hopes, but his active mind turned
 to other channels of thought, and other experiments at making a
 living in which the popular response was more in the nature of "The
 show which wayside folk admire."
   He moved to Lewiston and again engaged in the drug business.
Here he began the publication of several newspapers: "The Panso-
phist" 1852, which continued a year or less, followed by the "Touch-
stone" 1853 and 1854; the same year, 1854, the Farmer and Mechanic,
of short life, which seems to have closed with six numbers.1
   In the Touchstone he conducted a department called "Diarium,"
a section teeming with short notes, many of them now of historical
interest. In the "Diarium" of May 18, 1854, he says "We don't
print a paper for any other purpose but to let our minds have a vent."
This may be regarded as a fair commentary on his life motives, the
finding of an outlet for continual action for action's sake.
   He soon offered his drug interest for sale, and appeared at Farming-
ton, where he edited the "The Franklin Journal of Aurai Surgery and
Rational Medicine," 1859, another journal of short life. In the first
issue, of January 15, 1859, there appears under his authorship a very
fine obituary of Professor Parker Cleaveland.
  Before leaving Lewiston he abandoned the confinement of the
"Store" and launched upon the road in a spectacular peddlar's cart,
decorated by a Good Samaritan in the act of healing, in which he
travelled all over the southwestern section of the State selling" Young's
Cathalicon," a cough syrup reputed a great remedy for human ills.
He interested himself in civic matters, public health, the cause of the
striking mill-girls whom he believed to be justly aggrieved, and the
  I Files of the several papers published by Dr. Young have been obtained by Dr.
James A. Spalding and deposited in Bowdoin College Library


1935]