PAEMENTIER AND THOMAS. 51 



this sketch) , the Bloodgood nurseiy, at Flushing, which was espe- 

 cially distinguished for its well-grown fruit trees; 1 Wilson's nur- 

 seiy, at Greenwich ; and Hogg's nursery, at Bloomingdale, Mr. 

 Hogg being, probably, the best cultivator of exotics in New York ; 2 

 Buel and Wilson's nursery, at Albany ; Sinclair and Moore's, 

 at Baltimore, Md. ; and the nursery of Andre Parmentier, at 

 Brooktyn, N.Y. The last-named establishment was situated at 

 the junction of Jamaica and Flatbush turnpikes, where is now the 

 most thickly settled part of the city of Brooklyn. The proprietor 

 was the brother of that celebrated horticulturist, the Chevalier Par- 

 mentier, ma} T or of Enghien, Belgium, and was the first practitioner 

 of the art of landscape gardening, of any note, in this country, to 

 which he came about 1824. In his nurseries he gave a specimen 

 of the natural style of laying out grounds, combined with a scien- 

 tific arrangement of plants, which excited public curiosity, and 

 contributed much to the dissemination of a taste for a natural 

 mode of landscape gardening. He frequently visited other parts 

 of the country for the purpose of laying out the gardens and 

 pleasure grounds of such gentlemen as desired his services. 8 



David Thomas of Aurora, Cayuga County, N.Y., was the pio- 

 neer horticulturist in the western part of that State, which has 

 now become the nursery garden of the country. He did much 

 towards introducing new and valuable fruits during the early part 

 of the present century ; and from the year 1830, and for ten or 

 twenty years afterwards, he had probably the most extensive and 

 valuable collection of bearing trees west of the Hudson. He was 

 even more interested in floriculture and botany than in pomology, 

 and made a very extensive collection of native as well as exotic 

 ornamental plants, and was elected a corresponding member of 

 the London Horticultural Society and of the Linnsean Society of 

 Paris. 4 In his horticultural pursuits he associated with him his 

 son, John J. Thomas, author of the Fruit Culturist, and horti- 

 cultural editor of the Country Gentleman, and well known as a 

 most accurate, systematic, and conscientious horticulturist. 



In October, 1828, John A. and Samuel Wilson of Derry, N.H., 

 advertised in the New England Farmer a stock of more than 



1 London's Gardener's Magazine, Vol. VIII. p. 280. 



2 Hovey's Magazine, Vol. III. p. 4. 



8 Downing's Landscape Gardening, sixth ed., p. 24; New England Farmer, Vol. VI. 

 pp. 215, 391, Vol. VII. p. 84. 

 4 Letter of John J. Thomas. 



