Note 277 — Chapter XX · AUDUBON'S ÆNEID, 1819-1824: WANDERINGS THROUGH THE WEST AND SOUTH
Reading edition
Dr. Daniel Drake (1785-1852) was one of the most versatile and prolific writers on medicine which the West has ever produced, and Cincinnati owed to him much, for he was instrumental in organizing in that city a church, a literary society, a museum, a hospital, a college, and a school of medicine, while he enjoyed a large medical practice, lectured on botany, and was a partner in two mercantile establishments. We might also add that his "Notice concerning Cincinnati" (pp. 1-28, i-iv. Printed for the author at Cincinnati, 1810), of which only three copies are known to exist, is the earliest and rarest published record of that city. This little pamphlet included a "Flora" of the city for 1809, and from it we transcribe this interesting extract (p. 27):
"May 10. Black locust in full flower.
"It is highly probable that the flowering of this beautiful tree, the Robinia pseudocacia of Linnæus, indicates the proper time for planting the important vegetable the Indian corn. For several successive years I have observed our farmers generally to plant corn during some stage of its flowering. This from the 10th to the 20th of May."
For the privilege of examining one of the original copies of this paper, I am indebted to Mr. Wallace H. Cathcart of the Western Reserve Historical Society of Cleveland.