(Cactaceœ of northeastern and central Mexico together with...)
Cactaceœ of northeastern and central Mexico together with a synopsis of the principal Mexican genera This book, "Cactaceœ of northeastern and central Mexico", by William Edwin Safford, is a replication of a book originally published before 1909. It has been restored by human beings, page by page, so that you may enjoy it in a form as close to the original as possible.
Daturas Of The Old World And New: An Account Of Their Narcotic Properties And Their Use In Oracular And Initiatory Ceremonies (1922)
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The Useful Plants of the Island of Guam: With an Introductory Account of the Physical Features and Natural History of the Island, of the Character and ... Their Agriculture, Vol. 9 (Classic Reprint)
(Mr. W. E. Safford, assistant botanist in theD epartment o...)
Mr. W. E. Safford, assistant botanist in theD epartment of A griculture, for several yeai-s availed himself of the opportunit} afforded him as a lieutenant in the United States Navy to study and observe the useful plants of the Tropics. In addition to cruises in other parts of the world he visited, in 1886, 1887, 1894, and 1899, Upolu and Tutuila of theS amoan group, andO ahu of the Hawaiian group; and from A ugust, 1899, to A ugust, 1900, he acted as assistant governor of the island of Guam. This paper has been prepared by Mr. Safford through the recent elaboration of notes and observations made in those years. While presented under the title The Useful Plants of Guam, it includes some reference, however brief, to every plant known to occur on that island, particular note being made of those which have been described from Guam by various writers as species new to science. It discusses the principal plants used for food, liber, oil, starch, sugar, and forage in the Pacific tropical islands recently acquired by the United States, and gives their common names not only in Guam but in the Philippine I slands, Samoa, Hawaii, and Porto Rico. The method of cultivating and propagating the more important species is treated in considerable detail, as is the preparation of their derivative products, such as arrowroot, copra, and cacao. The publication will be useful to the rapidly increasing number of American travelers and officers who wish to have in language of as little technicality as possible information about the economic plants of the world; and while the author does not lay claim to more than a report on the island of Guam, much of the information he gives is applicable throughout the Tropics. Besides consulting the original narratives of travelers, Mr. Safford took advantage of his exceptional opportunities to study the archives of Guam, and his account of th
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)
William Edwin Safford was an American botanist, ethnologist, and philologist.
Background
William Edwin Safford, born on December 14, 1859 in Chillicothe, Ohio, United States, was the fifth of ten children.
He was descended from Thomas Safford, who emigrated from England in 1630, and was in Ipswich, Massachussets, by 1641. Later ancestors lived in Vermont, but his grandfather, Eliel Todd Safford, married Ann Tyler Harrison, of Prince William County, Va. , and died at Parkersburg, Va. (now W. Va. ), in 1840. The latter's son, William Harrison Safford (Feb. 19, 1821 - Apr. 20, 1903), born in Parkersburg, married Anna Marie Pocahontas Creel, daughter of Dr. David Creel of Wood County, Va. (now W. Va. ), and moved to Ohio in 1848, settling in Chillicothe. He was a distinguished jurist and the author of The Blennerhasset Papers (1861).
From his home surroundings, and notably through the influence of his mother, Safford grew up with a strong interest in natural history, and from his association with German children in school early acquired an idiomatic knowledge of that language which led later to his special linguistic studies.
Education
Safford graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy in 1880. He was later detailed to post-graduate studies in botany and zoology at Yale (1883 - 85) and in marine zoology at Harvard (1885). From George Washington University he received the degree Ph. D. in 1920.
Career
After the United States Naval Academy he was assigned in the autumn of 1880 to the Powhatan. A cruise to Panama next spring afforded him a first view of the tropics. On the return voyage he chanced to meet Alexander Agassiz at Key West, and, adopting willingly enough that famous scientist's advice, resolved to fit himself for scientific collecting on future cruises. Later followed a voyage around Cape Horn and a long cruise in the southern Pacific, during which Safford's botanical and ethnological bent found full play, and then a detail of two years as instructor in modern languages at the Naval Academy.
In 1890 he was detached from duty and appointed commissioner to Peru and Bolivia (1891 - 92) for the World's Columbian Exposition, his researches in South America centering in ethnology.
He returned to the navy in 1893 and saw service in the Spanish-American War, after which there followed immediately a colorful year as vice-governor of newly acquired Guam. He resigned from the navy in August 1902, when ranking as lieutenant, to accept appointment as assistant botanist in the United States Department of Agriculture, and was promoted in 1915 to economic botanist, a position which he held up to the time of his death.
The period from 1902 onward, when for the first time he was really free to write, proved one of great productiveness. A volume entitled, The Useful Plants of the Island of Guam (Contributions from the United States National Herbarium, vol. IX, 1905) is virtually a handbook of the island, but its usefulness is by no means restricted to Guam, since it contains detailed information regarding many widely distributed plants and plant products of the Pacific region. It at once established Safford's reputation as an ethnobotanist.
It followed at frequent intervals many important ethnobotanical papers, of which only a few may be mentioned: "An Aztec Narcotic, Lophophora Williamsii" (Journal of Heredity, vol. VI, 1915, pp. 291-311); "Lignum Nephriticum" (Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution 1915); "Food Plants and Textiles of Ancient America" (Proceedings of the Second Pan-American Scientific Congress, 1917, vol. I); "Narcotic Plants and Stimulants of the Ancient Americans" (Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution 1916); "Daturas of the Old World and New" (Ibid. , 1920); "Foods Discovered with America" (Scientific Monthly, Aug. 1925), "Peyote, the Narcotic Mescal Button of the Indians" (Journal of the American Medical Association, Oct. 15, 1921); and "The Potato of Romance and of Reality" (Journal of Heredity, 1925, vol. XVI). It was Safford's special facility with Nahuatl and other ancient American tongues and with Polynesian dialects which contributed so largely to the value of this work.
At the same time Safford was publishing systematic papers on certain groups of tropical American plants, for example, the genus Dahlia, the cactus family, the bull-horn acacias and their ant inhabitants, and an important long series upon the family Annonaceae, besides dictionary work, notes of exploration and travel, biographical sketches, and numerous botanical articles for Bailey's Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture (6 vols. , 1914 - 17).
On Mar. 17, 1924, he was stricken with paralysis, but partially recovered and continued at work almost to the day of his death, which resulted from pneumonia with attendant heart complications.
(Mr. W. E. Safford, assistant botanist in theD epartment o...)
Personality
Safford was intensely dynamic, with a genius for friendship. He was witty and jovial, keenly inquisitive of all things, trained to acute perception that amounted almost to intuition, and extremely fluent in self-expression. Of his generation there were few better deserving of that old term of distinction - naturalist.
Quotes from others about the person
"He was one who loved nature profoundly but humanity not less" (Smith, post).
Connections
He was married, Sept. 14, 1904, to Clare, daughter of Chief Justice Decius S. Wade, of Montana, and was survived by his wife, a son, and a daughter.