She 
also offered dotble flowered pears, cherries, and apples. In 
front of the old Prince homestead, at Flushing, L. I., are two 
box trees that have stood in their present location for one 
hundred years (fig. 13). There is still standing there also a 
tall cedar-of-Lebanon, which, so far as known, is the oldest 
specimen of this tree in America. Magnificant specimens of the 
bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) from this garden are still 
standing in the streets of Flushing. The daughter of Mr. William 
Robert Prince, who still resides in Flushing, is authority for the 
statement that, at the time of the potato famine in Ireland, her 
father paid six hundred dollars for less than a pint of bulbs of 
the yam (Dioscorea Batatas), with the idea of ascertaining 
whether its thick farinaceous root might not be introduced into 
America as a substitute for potatoes. The Garden has been 
presented with a copy of a well executed wood cut which Mr. 
Prince had prepared, illustrating the botanical features of this 
plant. 
While the Linnaean garden was not primarily a scientific 
institution, the interest of its several proprietors, grandfather, 
ather, and son, in plants for their own sake—in pure science— 
had much to do with the success of the garden, and especially 
with the profound and lasting influence which it exerted on 
American horticulture. 
C. Stuart Gacer. 
