92 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



confirmation of what I have often observed with as- 

 tonishment, namely, that American plants grow any- 

 where with little or no reference to the place of their 

 origin.* 



Bartram senior in his travels had collected as well 

 all manner of rocks and minerals which are now kept 

 in a box without any system intermixed with European 

 specimens, especially Swedish, sent over by Linnaeus 

 Archiater. The son showed them me when I was a 

 second time at Philadelphia and able from my own 

 knowledge to distinguish what was American ; but Mr. 

 Bartram was not to be persuaded to sell me these at 

 any price, cherishing- in them the memory of his father's 

 industry. 



Nearer to Philadelphia, but also on the farther bank 

 of the Schuylkill, there lives a botanist who is the equal 

 of Bartram neither in knowledge nor spirit, although 

 he makes more a-do Mr. Young, by birth a Hessian, 

 who in a strange way has gotten to himself the title of 

 Botanist to the Queen. His father lived at this same 

 place, by what he could make on his bit of land ; the 

 son was frequently in Bartram's garden, and found 

 amusement in the variegated blossoms. One day, (so 

 I was told at Philadelphia) , he sent to London a paquet 

 of plants which he had collected in the garden, with a 

 letter addressed To the Queen. He had placed the 

 paquet unobserved in the bag which is usually kept 

 open at the Coffee-house by ships shortly to clear. 

 Arrived at London the skipper was in a quandary 



* Since my return I have seen American trees and shrubs 

 more than once, in England and Germany, thriving on dry 

 soils, whereas in America it had been my observation that 

 these varieties were to be found only in swampy places. 



