THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 63 



quaintest and most interesting bits of old-fashioned wood- 

 work imaginable over the mantels in these up-stairs rooms 

 of Bartram's house. 



The old wood-shed figured in Meehan^s Monthly, 

 January, 1896 (VI: 17), was for a long time Bartram's 

 potting and packing shed, and doubtless many of the 

 cherished plants of Collinson and other English worthies 

 saw the light of America here for the last time. It was in 

 this shed that the work published in 1853, describing all 

 the trees then growing in Bartram's garden, was written. 

 The writer of that work, Thos. Meehan, lived a mile from 

 the garden, and to save his time the offer to fit up a room 

 in this wood-shed was made and accepted, and " The Hand- 

 book of Ornamental Trees " was completed under the shade 

 of the trees of the garden.* 



These buildings stand about midway in the grounds, 

 wdiere the higher portion ends and the slope to the Schuyl- 

 kill begins, and are reached, as in Bartram's time, by a 

 private lane that runs in from Darby Road, and which is 

 bordered by forest trees, among them some beautiful willow 

 and pin oaks. 



The lane skirts the upper part of the orchard where 

 Bart ram experimented successfully with irrigation. Near 

 a group of white pines a diverging path runs diagonally 

 from the lane across the orchard, past a fine yew, and on to 

 the west entrance to the house, where lane and path meet 

 again at the doorway, after having passed through the oldest 

 part of the garden. Near the house they cross a railroad 

 cut (really a picturesque feature, its rocky walls curtained 



* Tfie American Hand-book of Ornamental Trees, by Thomas Meehan, 

 gardener, Philadelphia. Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1853, octavo pp., xv. 257. 



