GROWING TREES FROM SEED. 225 



bring home seeds and seedlings for simple experiments ; 

 surely this is a pleasant object for a walk. 

 Chicago 111., April 20, 1903. 



Growing Trees from Seed. 



Those who know of John Bartram, the first American 

 botanist, and are familiar with that wonderfully varied and 

 interesting correspondence which was maintained between 

 him and Peter Collinson for so many years, will remember 

 the eagerness with which the latter and his friend, I^ord 

 Petre, awaited consignments of seeds from America. So 

 long as lyord Petre lived, a sum of money was made up an- 

 nually for Bartram, to enable him to devote a portion of 

 his time to collecting the seeds and nuts of forest trees, 

 and whenever a box containing packages of them arrived 

 in London, there was sure to be a gathering of choice 

 and congenial spirits — noblemen, botanists, trades-people, 

 brought together by a common interest in the packets, to 

 examine their contents, to read Bartram's descriptions of 

 the trees and shrubs that bore the seeds, and to share in 

 the generous distribution of them. No one who has read 

 Dr. Darlington's collection of the Bartram-Collinson cor 

 respondence will forget Collinson's repeated and plaintive 

 appeal for chinquapins. 



We now leave to the seedsmen much of the work in this 

 direction done by Bartram and his London friends, but we 

 miss something in interest and value by doing .so. There 

 is a pleasure in watching the growth of a tree or shrub 

 from a seed planted by our own hands, such as the trans- 

 planting of a seedling cannot give, and when it is rare or 

 from a distance, the interest is, of course, greatly enhanced. 

 It is all much easier now than in Peter Collinson's time. 

 Not only can seeds be readily obtained by correspondence, 

 or through some friend who is on a tour for health or 



