24 INTRODUCTION. 



seemed to him most reasonable to believe not only that a thing 

 grows best where it grows natural^, but that it would hardly be 

 equalled by another of the same kind not naturally growing there ; 

 but he intended to try both. At about the same time, Mahlon 

 Stacy, writing from Jersey, said, " We have peaches by cart- 

 loads." About the year 1700, the whole street, of a mile in 

 length, in Germantown, was fronted with blooming peach trees. 1 



The Bartram Botanic Garden, near the city of Philadelphia, 

 begun in 1728 by John Bartram, who was pronounced by Linnaeus 

 the best natural botanist known, was the first garden of the kind 

 in America. Here grew the trees and plants collected by Bartram 

 in his botanical explorations, which extended over nearly all the 

 United States then known, from Lake Ontario in the north to the 

 source of the St. John's River in Florida, and here still flourish a 

 greater variety and finer specimens of our indigenous trees than 

 can probably be found grouped together in any other place of the 

 same size ; the most prominent being a deciduous cypress (Taxo- 

 dium distichum) twenty feet in circumference and one hundred 

 and twenty-five feet high. The original tree of the Petre pear, 

 raised by Bartram from seed sent him by Lady Petre, and which 

 first bore fruit in 1763, stands near the house which Bartram built 

 of stone with his own hands. A seat under an Ohio buckej^e 

 (jEsculus pavia) , around which once twined a luxuriant Tecoma, 

 or trumpet creeper, was a favorite resort of Washington while he 

 lived in Philadelphia. 2 



The Bartram garden was continued by the sons of its founder, 

 John and William, and afterwards occupied by Col. Robert Carr 

 (whose wife Anne was a daughter of the 3'ounger John) as a 

 nursery. About 1807 Frai^ois Andre Michaux resided here, and 

 studied the collection of trees and shrubs. More fortunate than 

 the majority of such establishments, it is now in the possession 

 of Andrew M. Eastwick, who preserves its original appearance, 

 as far as possible, as a monument to the taste and industry of our 

 first native botanist. 8 



Bartram was a member of the Royal Societies of London and 

 Stockholm, 4 and his correspondence extended to the most distin- 



1 Watson's Annals of Philadelphia, ed. 1844, Vol. I. pp. 17, 46, Vol. H. p. 46. 



2 Horticulturist, Vol. V. p. 253, Vol. X. p. 371, Vol. XI. p. 79. 



Mr. Eastwick died February 8, 1879. The Bartram garden will doubtless be sold, and 

 probably used as a shipping station. 



Loudon's Gardener's Magazine, Vol. VII. p. 666. 



