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ture under the tuition of his brother, a man of continental repute 
as a horticulturist and landscape gardener, who died April 1, 1852, 
in his seventy-seventh year, after a long tenure of the direction 
of the part of Enghien for the noble house of Arenberg, to which 
it now belongs. | 
“Upon a division of the family estate, which was not inconsider- 
able, Andrew Parmentier came to New York in 1824.... He 
was persuaded to remain in New York as a place where his abili- 
ties and scientific training would meet recognition. Accordingly, 
on October 4, 1825, he purchased for $4,000 a tract of twenty- 
three acres of land, between the Jamaica and Flatbush roads, on 
the outskirts of what was then the village of Brooklyn, and now 
one of the most desirable residential sections of that populous 
borough. Here he built a house and laid out the land with all the 
taste and skill he had acquired abroad. He saw the splendid possi- 
bilities of the fruitful Long Island soil for a horticultural park, 
and intended making his purchase the foundation of a colony of 
his fellow countrymen. Round this garden he built a high stone 
wall, inside of which he planted a hedge of flowering shrubs. 
The natives who did not understand or appreciate his plans thought 
all this a piece of folly and used to call him ‘the crazy Frenchman.’ 
“Under his care the gardens flourished and became famous in 
a short time, not only in New York, but over the entire country, 
and his services as an expert in laying out pleasure grounds were 
sought for in many places North and South. He was the first to 
introduce into the country the black beech tree and several varieties 
of shrubs, flowers, vegetables and vines. His announcement in 
the Baltimore, Md., American Farmer of October 16, 1829, reads: 
““Andrew Parmentier, proprietor of the Horticultural and Bo- 
tanical Garden, Brooklyn, New York, at the junction of the Flat- 
bush and Jamaica turnpike, two miles from the ferries, offers 
twelve of the most select table grapes, very hardy, of the North 
of France, at $6 the dozen, with directions for planting, etc., or 
at seventy-five cents a piece separately—such as they are described 
in his catalogue. . . . He has a choice assortment of 242 kinds of 
apples, 190 kinds of superior pears, 71 cherries, 64 peaches, 15 
nectarines, 85 plums, I5 apricots, 20 gooseberries, etc., some of 
