MEMOIR OF DAVID DOUGLAS 295 



APPENDIX I. 



MEMOIR OF DAVID DOUGLAS 



[HAVING been requested by the President and Council of the Society to prepare 

 the hitherto unpublished manuscript Journals sent home by Douglas whilst he 

 was travelling in North America on behalf of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 I feel that it would be a mistake not to attempt to gather together all the facts 

 concerning this eminent Horticulturist which have come to my notice during 

 the researches entailed by the investigation of documents bearing upon his 

 Journal. I make no apology therefore for attempting a very brief Memoir, 

 but only for the inadequacy with which I fear I may have been able to carry 

 it out. I have been unavoidably compelled to present it in the form of four 

 Appendices. W. W.] 



I David Douglas was born in Scotland, at Scone near Perth, in the year 1798, 

 and served a seven years' apprenticeship as a gardener in the gardens of the Earl 

 of Mansfield, at Scone. When he was about eighteen years of age he moved to 

 Valley field, near Culross, to the garden of Sir Robert Preston, Bart., which was 

 at that time notable for its collection of exotic plants. About two years after- 

 wards he obtained an appointment in the Glasgow Botanic Garden, where his 

 enthusiasm for plants attracted the attention of Dr. William Jackson Hooker, the 

 Professor of Botany at Glasgow University, who made him his companion in his 

 excursions through the Western Highlands and employed him as his assistant in 

 collecting materials for the " Flora Scotica," in the publication of which Dr. 

 Hooker was then engaged. And when Dr. Hooker was consulted by Mr. Joseph 

 Sabine, the secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society, as to a suitable person 

 to be employed by the Society on a Botanical expedition to North America, 

 Dr. Hooker had no hesitation whatever in recommending David Douglas as the 

 most suitable person he knew. 



j Douglas was accordingly engaged by the Society, and on June 3, 1823, he 

 was despatched to the United States, where he collected a large number of 

 specimens of various Oaks, a detailed descriptive review of which will be 

 found in this volume, pp. 31-49. He also obtained and either sent or brought 

 home a number of other interesting new plants, a collection of fruit trees 

 among them. 



Having successfully accomplished this mission he returned to England in the 

 late autumn of 1823, and an opportunity offering next year through the Hudson 

 Bay Company he was again employed by the Society on a similar journey, but 

 spread over a much larger tract of country, extending from California northwards 

 to the Columbia River and as far further north on the western side of the continent 

 as he found he could penetrate. During the interval between his return and 

 starting on his new journey Douglas is related to have worked no less than eighteen 

 hours a day in perfecting himself in various scientific and technical ways in which 

 he felt himself to be at all deficient. 



