BIOORAPniES OF POMOLOOISTS, BOTANISTS, AND OARDENEUS. 



were the talk of the country. So frequent were the demands upon bis time for 

 information, and the recjucsts for grafts, tliat lie determined to give the results of 

 his experience in the form of jiriiit ; the volume now so celebrated, and so scarce, 

 was the result. lie i)reviously enliuhtened his fellow-citizens by furnishin<:^ tho 

 capital for a nursery business, consigning it to the hands of a partner, Daniel 

 Smith, one of whose lists of trees, for the year 18UG, is now before us, and is quite 

 a curiosity in itself. 



Mr. Coxe was interested in the profits of the nursery, but formed, ])erbaps, 

 erroneous views of the demand for that period ; the sales never amounted to more 

 thau five thousand dollars a year; the half profits on this could have been of little 

 moment to a gentleman then living in the style of the wealthiest people of the 

 period, l)ut it was in the line of his studies so to do, and we all know, that for a 

 favorite hobby wc can attempt anything we fancy. The business not l)eing of 

 sullicient moment, it was abandoned to his partner, who continued it for some 

 years with moderate success. 



Mr. Coxe was made an honorary member of the Horticultural Society of Lon- 

 don, and received, annually, their splendid works, with' colored engravings, ia 

 consequence of his making known to the members the great value of the Seckel 

 pear, a painting of which, executed by one of the accomplished members of his 

 family, was sent by him through Dr. Hosack to that Institution ; but in a few 

 years, he declined this honor, being unwilling to receive their valuable publications 

 for so trifling a contrilnition. 



He was for many years a member of the State Legislature, and afterwards was 

 elected a member of Congress about the time of the last war with England, where 

 he was intimately associated with DanielWebster, and one of his earliest admirers. 

 Some unfortunate investments in real estate induced him to consider it prudent 

 to dispose of his beautiful residence in Burlington, and remove to his farm on the 

 borders of the Delaware, near the town, which he improved and cultivated with 

 great interest. The cider made there, much of it from his favorite crab-aitple, 

 was sought after from all parts of the country, and made as much noise in the 

 then little American world, as the wine of Ohio does now. 



From this period he led a very retired life — devoted to his family and his books, 

 always manifesting a warm interest in the church of which he was a member, and 

 keenly alive to the comfort of the poor families by whom he was surrounded, fre- 

 quently making sacrifices to give them employment, especially through the winter 

 mouths. 



A sudden and violent cold, terminating in bronchitis, caused his death on the 

 25th of February, 1831, in the 69th year of his age. He left several children, 

 one of whom, Richard Smith Coxe, has made a considerable figure at the bar, and 

 is a resident of Washington, D. C. One of his daughters is the wife of Bishop 

 Mcllvaine, of Ohio. 



Such is the bare outline of the life of William Coxe, the pioneer of American 

 pomology, on which it would be useless to enlarge further than to say that his 

 book is a very good one. Much that we moderns plume ourselves upon as new, 

 is old. Even Evelyn, in 1686, said: "Water lately planted trees, and put moist 

 and half-rotten fern, &c., about the foot of their stems, having first cleared chem 

 of weeds and a little stirred the earth." This is our modern "mulching" and 

 "stirring." Again, in October, he says: "Trench grounds for orcharding, and 

 the kitchen garden, to lie for a winter mellowing." This is now ranch insisted on. 

 " Gather winter fruit, that remains, weather dry ; take heed of bruising; lay them 

 up clean lest they taint." Evelyn, too, has his select list of pears, as foil 

 "Messire Jean, Lord-pear, long Bergamot, Warden (to bake). Burnt-cat, S 



