the Manuscr'ipts of tlic late Peter Collinson. 20 1 



The abovementioned gardeners Furber and Grav availed 

 themselves of making purchases from this noblt- collection, 

 and augmented iheir nurseries with many fine plants not 

 otherwise to be procured. 



Brompton Park was another surprising nursery of all the 

 varieties of evergreens, fruits, &c., with a nmnber of others 

 ;11 round the town; for, as the taste increased, nursery gar- 

 dens flourished. 



Mr, Hunt at Putney, and Mr. Grav, are now living, 

 aged about 70. But more modern cultivators are the cele- 

 brated. James Gordon at Mile-pnd, whom for many years/ 

 from my extensive correspondence, I have assisted with' 

 plants and seeds, and who, with a sagacity peculiar to him- 

 self, has raised a vast varietv of plants from all parts of the 

 world ; and the ingenious Mr. Lcc of Hammersmith, who, 

 had he the like assistance, would be little behind him. Mr. 

 Miller of the Physic Garden, Chelsea, has made his great 

 abilities welt knov.^n by his works, as well as his skill \n 

 every part of gardening, and his success in raisins: seeds 

 procured bv a large correspondence. He has raised the re- 

 putation of the Chelsea garden so much, that it excels all 

 the gardens in Europe for its amnzing^variety of plants of all 

 orders and classes, and from all climates, as T beheld with 

 much delight this igth of July, 1764. 



October 3d, \lb<^, after nine years absence from Good- 

 wood after the death of niv intimate friend the late duke of 

 Richmond, I accompanied ihe present duchess there, and to 

 my agreeable surprise found the hardy exotic trees nuuh 

 grown. There were two fine great magnolias about twenty 

 feet high in the American grove that flowered annuallv. 

 (My tree flowered this year. 17C0, that I raised from seed 

 about twenty years before.) Some of the larches measured 

 near the ground seventeen inches round, the rest fourteen 

 inches and a half. I saw a larch of the old duke's plant- 

 ing cut down, that in twcntv-fivc years was above fifiv 

 feet high, and cut into planks above a fool in diameter, and 

 above twenty feet long : but therfe were some larches of the 

 same dale seventy feet high. Thcv grow wonderfullv in 

 chalky soil. 



October 30th, 17^3, the -young lord Petre came of aso. 

 The late lord Petre, his father, died Julv 'id, 1 7-1 ^J : he vv.is 

 my intimate friend, tlie ornament and delight of the aae he 

 lived in. He went from his house at Ingatesione in Essex, 

 to his scat at Thorndon-hall in the same county, to extend 

 a large row of elms ai the end of the park hehiud the house. 

 He removed in ihe spring f)f the year 1 73}, being, the 22d of 



his 



