MEASURES TAKEN FOR THE PURCHASE. 77 



Mr. Brimmer's proposition to sell " Sweet Auburn" was 

 formally communicated to the Horticultural Society at a 

 meeting at the Exchange Coffee House, on the 27th of 

 November, 1830, when Thomas H. Perkins, John Lowell, 

 H. A. S. Dearborn, Jacob Bigelow, George W. Brimmer, 

 George Bond, and Abbott Lawrence, were appointed a 

 committee " to inquire into the expediency of purchas- 

 ing a piece of ground in the vicinity of Boston for a 

 garden of experiment and a rural cemetery." 



During the following winter and spring nothing was 

 done to promote the object, except that, as the season 

 opened, many persons were led to visit " Sweet Auburn," 

 and to become acquainted with the charming scenery, 

 as well as to study its advantages for its proposed use. 

 Numerous meetings were held by the committee, and 

 several articles appeared in the newspapers of the period 

 explanatory of the views of the projectors of the experi- 

 mental garden and cemetery. But the Society had 

 not, at this time, the means of purchasing land for a 

 garden and cemetery, however desirable these objects 

 might be; and therefore, at a meeting of the Society 

 on the 4th of June, 1831, the president stated what 

 measures had been taken by the committee having the 

 subject under consideration, and offered a resolve, which 

 was adopted, that the committee be authorized to in- 

 crease their numbers, and to ask the aid of such other 

 gentlemen not members of the Society, as in their opin- 

 ion would forward the objects desired, by being asso- 

 ciated with them. Accordingly, the committee called 

 a meeting on the 18th of June, at the rooms of the 

 Horticultural Society, then in Joy's Building, of gentle- 

 men who were favorably disposed to the enterprise. 

 Judge Story was called to the chair, and Edward Everett 



