272 ‘PATRICK BLAIR, SURGEON APOTHECARY. [Szss. uxx1. 
3” 
and citizen of London,’ who left his library to his native 
village of Kettins, and “mortified” such sums, that pupils 
of that village school are still receiving the benefit of this 
kindly remembrance of the donor’s home at Baldowrie. Ina 
short time Blair became intimate with the most active botanists 
of the time, and joined them in their herborisings. He 
gathered together a collection of his “Observations in Physick, 
Anatomy, Surgery, and Botanicks,” which was published in 
1718. A “ Discourse on the Sexes of Plants,” which he read 
before the Royal Society, gave such an exhaustive and 
experimental demonstration on this subject, that he was 
induced to amplify his matter and publish a volume on 
this, and on the common physiology of plants and animals. 
This work—“ Botanick Essays ”—published in 1720, 1s the one 
by which he is best known. It strengthened the arguments 
in proof of the sexes of plants by sound reasoning, and some 
new and striking experiments. 
But all this time he was finding the struggle for existence 
very severe. He writes Sloane in 1719 that he “ was nearly 
ruined,” and ultimately he was forced to consider the question 
of retiring to some country place, where he might live a 
quieter life, and have more opportunity of securing a reason- 
able livelihood for himself and his family. In April 1720 
he removed to Boston in Lincolnshire, and here he remained 
till his death, and from which his last work was issued in 
decads or sections, and this, practieally, was the English 
version of the work he had started upon when in Dundee. 
Previous to his leaving London, however, in August 1719, as 
Dr. John Martyn carefully records, he came across a young 
man, the son of a London merchant, and at that time 
occupied in his father’s counting-house in the city, but whose 
tastes lay strongly towards botany and natural history. This 
led to an intimacy between the old man and the young inguirer 
which is one of the most cheering episodes in Blair’s life. He 
always had, as I said before, an interest in the young men who 
were his pupils, and now this “agreeable sweet youth” of 
twenty quite captivated the heart of the older man. All 
his wide knowledge was at the young man’s disposal; they 
“herborised” together while he was yet in London, and after 
his removal to Boston an uninterrupted correspondence was 
maintained between them till Blair’s death. 
