for cultivating flowers and trees. He finally became the mayor of 
Enghien, his birthplace, and developed there a beautiful munici- 
pal park of 300 acres, containing over 2,000 species and varieties 
of trees and shrubs collected by him from all over the world." 
This list became important as a source of knowledge concerning 
the origin of plants cultivated in Belgium. 
It was in the Enghien park that André Parmentier, under the 
guidance of his brother, Joseph, became a skilled landscape 
gardener. Business reverses led him to migrate to America. 
The fame of the name Parmentier had preceded André to this 
country, and soon after his arrival he was urged by Dr. David 
Hosack and others to become the superintendent of the then 
famous Elgin Botanic Garden, established by Dr. Hosack on 
Murray Hill, just north of the present site of the Grand Central 
Terminal in Manhattan. Rejecting this offer, he purchased, 
on October 4, 1825, a tract of 25 acres of land in Brooklyn 
located at the juncture of the Jamaica and Flatbush Roads. The 
price paid for this property was $4,000! The area was included, 
roughly, between what are now Sixth and Carleton Avenues 
and Bergen Street and Atlantic Avenue. 
This nursery soon became famous, and Mr. Parmentier’s 
services were widely sought (from our Southern States to Canada, 
as well as in the vicinity of Brooklyn) as a landscape gardene1 
in laying out gardens and parks. The black beech tree, and 
many varieties of shrubs, vines, and herbaceous plants were 
introduced into America for the first time by Parmentier. The 
number of varieties under cultivation and offered for sale is 
almost beyond belief, considering the time and the place. 
In 1922, Mr. Frank Bailey, Chairman of the Governing Com- 
mittee of the present Brooklyn Botanic Garden, presented our 
library with a copy of Parmentier’s catalog. In it are listed 
for sale, among other items, 242 varieties of apples, 190 kinds of 
pears, 71 varieties of cherries, 5 of quince, 12 varieties of European 
grapes in addition to seven varieties of native American grapes, 
1 A list of the plants grown by Joseph Parmentier in the Enghien park was 
published in Catalogue des plantes cultivées par M. Joseph Parmentier, matre 
de Enghien, department de Jemmape, a l’epoque du la jannier, 1808. 
See, also, Catalogue des arbres et plantes cultivés dans les jardins de Mr. Joseph 
Parmentier. Bruxelles, Demanet, 1818. 82 pp 
