PREFACE ix 



wrapping them up in moss, and packing them pretty close in a box. 

 They come thus very safe, and we lose very few of them. He ties 

 the moss in a ball about the roots with a piece of pack thread or 

 matting, or hemp strings, and puts them so close as to prevent them 

 from shaking about in the box." 



Again (page 509) Fothergill writes Marshall: 



"Ninth Month, 1772. . . . I had a plant of the great American 

 Nymphaea (NelumUum) from W. Young. It put out leaves and 

 the appearance of a flower, but did not flourish. I should be glad 

 of another root, if it could be easily obtained. . . . 



"I know not whether J. Bartram or any of his family continue to 

 send over boxes of seeds as usual. He collected them with much 

 care and they mostly gave satisfaction. W. Young has been very 

 diligent, but has glutted the market with many common things; as 

 the Tulip Trees, Robinias and the like. But, contrary to my 

 opinion, he put them into the hands of a person, who, to make the 

 most of them, bought up, I am told, all the old American seeds that 

 were in the hands of the seedsmen here and mixed them with a few 

 of W. Young's to increase the quantity. Being old and effete, they 

 did not come up, and have thereby injured his reputation. I am 

 sorry for him ; have endeavoured to help him ; but he is not discreet." 



Thus ends William Young's record from these sources, so let us 

 now turn to others for such information as may be germane. In this 

 search I have been much helped by my friend the well-informed 

 historian of Germantown botanists and gardeners, Edwin C. Jellett, 

 who had come across family records of the Darby Road Youngs. 



William Young's father, also named William, not only owned the 

 farm of 24^3 acres where W. Young, Jr., lived, not far from J. 

 Bartram's Garden, but also a plantation which he called "Blockley" 

 in the same neighborhood. The Blockley Farm was his home. 

 His will, the original of which I have examined at the Register's 

 Office in Philadelphia, indicates a person of comfortable means and 

 shows that in addition to agriculture he dealt extensively in, and 

 probably manufactured, a patent medicine named "Hill's Balsam." 

 Debts to him for this Balsam alone, in hands of his agents in the 

 Colonies, were estimated at over 300 pounds sterling by his Execu- 

 tors. He makes no mention of his son hi his lengthy will, but leaves 

 his property to his widow and two married daughters and their 

 children, and specially provides for 2Ji acres in the centre of his 

 Kingsessing property to be known as "William Young's Burying 

 Ground." This graveyard yet exists, entirely surrounded by city 

 houses, and is on Fifty-second Street, one square west of Darby Road. 



