DR. HOSACK. GRANT THORBURN. 41 



garden was in 1810 sold to the State of New York, but has long 

 since wholly disappeared, as have also the botanic gardens estab- 

 lished previously to 1810 in Charleston, S.C., and in the State of 

 Maryland. 1 



Dr. Hosack was the most distinguished amateur and patron of 

 gardening, in every sense of the word, of his time, in the United 

 States. His own residence, Hyde Park, on the Hudson, was 

 celebrated as one of the finest specimens of landscape gardening 

 in the country. The estate comprised about seven hundred acres ; 

 and with its park, large, well-wooded, and intersected by a fine 

 stream, a handsome and well-filled range of greenhouses and hot- 

 houses, extensive lawn, shrubberies, flower and kitchen gardens 

 the whole kept in the highest order was for a long time the finest 

 seat in America. Dr. Hosack was well known in the literary and 

 scientific world, and his acquaintance abroad enabled him to intro- 

 duce man} 7 new fruits and plants. Some of our finest native fruits 

 were placed in the hands of horticulturists in Europe through his 

 means ; among others the Seckel pear, trees of which were sent 

 by him to the London Horticultural Society in the autumn of 

 1818. 2 



The seed and flower establishment of Messrs. Thorburn has long 

 been a prominent point of horticultural interest in the city of New 

 York, and was of great service in diffusing a taste for floricultu- 

 ral pursuits. Its founder, Grant Thorburn, in 1801 sold a rose 

 geranium, which he had planted in a pot on his counter to draw 

 attention to some flower pots that he had for sale in his grocery 

 store ; and from this insignificant beginning the establishment has 

 grown to a complete museum of every thing that can be required 

 in the practice of horticulture. The seed business was added in 

 1804, with a stock of seeds of the value of fifteen dollars. For 

 many years Messrs. Thorburn maintained a large greenhouse, 

 through which was the passage to their store, and in front of this 

 a large flower bed, which was gorgeous with hyacinths, tulips, 

 dahlias, etc., attracting the attention of ever} 7 passer. 8 



In the year 1800 Michael Floy came from England to New York, 

 bringing with him a plant of the Double White camellia, for John 



1 Darlington's Memorials, p. 22; Dr. Hosack's Statement, etc., p. 32. 



2 Hovey's Magazine, Vol. in. p. 5; London's Gardener's Magazine, Vol. VUI. p. 282; 

 Downing's Landscape Gardening, sixth ed., p. 29. 



3 Hovey's Magazine, Vol. I. p. 282, Vol. III. p. 4; London's Gardener's Magazine, Vol. 

 II. p. 345, Vol. IV. p. 275. 



