THE GINGKO-TREE. 319 
introduced into North America “ by that zealous amateur of hortieul- 
ture and botany, the late Mr. Hamilton, of Woodlands, near Philadel- 
phia, who brought the plants from England, where they had been 
received thirty years previous. There are several of these now growing 
at Woodlands; and the largest measures sixty feet in height, and three 
feet four inches in circumference. The next largest specimen that we 
have seen is now standing on the north side of that fine publie square, 
the Boston Common. It originally grew in the grounds of Gardiner 
Greene, Esq., of Boston ; but, though of great size, it was, about three 
years since, carefully removed to its present site, which proves its capa- 
bility for bearing transplanting. Its Measurement is forty feet in ele- 
vation and three in circumference.”’* 
If, as above remarked, this tree was “of full size" when Mr. G. 
Greene purchased the garden in 1798, there can scarcely be a doubt 
but that it must have been planted there long before 1784. That it had 
not attained so large a size as those of Philadelphia is to be accounted 
fer by the superiority of the climate in the latter country over that of 
Boston. Hi 
[Dr. Bigelow, the author of the following lines, is the amiable and 
talented physician and botanist of Boston, author of the *Florula 
Bostoniensis,’ * Medical Botany,’ &c., &e.] 
To the Gingko-tree on Boston Common ; by Dr. Jacob Bigelow. 
Thou queer, outlandish, fan-leaved tree, They dealt thee many a sturdy thump, 
Whose grandfather came o’er the sea, 
A pilgrim of the ocean, 
Didst thou expect to gather gear 
By selling out thy chopsticks here ? 
What a mistaken notion! 
Hard times, methinks, have been thy fate, 
Such as have played the deuce of late 
With men’s estates and purses, 
Since on thy native mount secure, 
` Thou deem'dst thy title safe and sure, 
Nor dream’dst of such reverses. 
They digged the earth beneath thy stump, 
And left thee high and dry ; 
The spot which once thy roots did bore 
Ts now the garret of a store, 
And earth is changed to sky. 
They dragged thee sweeping through the 
They set thee up upon thy feet,  [street, 
And bade thee sink or swim ; 
For many a month ’t was quite a doubt, 
If thou could’st possibly hold out, 
Thou look’dst so very slim. 
* Downing, ‘ Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening,’ pub- 
lished in London, Longmans, 1849. 
