HISTORICAL NOTES 11 



tender a goodly proportion of which were subjects that had long been 

 cultivated by the Chinese he returned to England in 1846. He was 

 appointed curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden, but in 1848 resigned 

 this post and went again to China for the purpose of transmitting the 

 tea plant to the hill countries of India. By means of seeds and plants 

 he succeeded in doing this, and thus laid the foundation of the great tea 

 industry of India. In 1852, and again in 1858, he went to China, 

 collecting and studying Chinese horticulture on the latter occasion in 

 the interests of the United States Government. In 1860 he worked in 

 Japan. Fortune's name will be found frequently to occur in the following 

 pages in connection with the introduction of N. Asiatic plants. 



An association of mostly Scottish gentlemen was formed about the 

 middle of the nineteenth century in Edinburgh to exploit the natural 

 products of western N. America. It was called the Oregon Association. 

 In 1850 the Association engaged John Jeffrey to collect for them in 

 western N. America. Jeffrey was a native of Fifeshire, and as a young man 

 entered the Edinburgh Botanic Garden. He adopted what was then the 

 most convenient method of crossing the N. American continent, which 

 was by way of the Hudson Bay Company's posts, and reached his 

 collecting ground in 1851. In 1852 he worked in California. Jeffrey 

 explored and collected with great zeal during these two years, but the 

 third year his engagement appears to have become irksome to him, the 

 roving passion seized him, and he joined an expedition to explore the 

 Colorado and Gila Rivers in Arizona, and was never heard of again. He 

 introduced, among other things, Abies magnified, Tsuga Albertiana and 

 Pi nits Jeffreyi. 



After W. Lobb, the next Chilean collector was Richard Pearse, who 

 worked for Messrs Veitch from 1859 to 1866. He reintroduced many of 

 the plants sent home by his predecessor, and British gardens owed to his 

 labours new stocks of Eucryphia pinnatifolia, the Embothrium and 

 Desfontainea. Among conifers, Araucaria imbricata was again intro- 

 duced, Podocarpus nubigena^ and for the first time, Prumnopitys elegans. 

 Pearse died in Panama in July 1867. 



Since the labours of Siebold in Japan, earlier in the century, the 

 beautiful flora of that country had yielded little for the gardens of Europe. 

 The opening of the ports to foreigners afforded an opportunity for renewed 

 discovery, and, in 1860, John Gould Veitch (1839-70) reached Japan, 

 and initiated in the interests of his firm one of the most successful of all 

 plant-collecting enterprises. He was especially fortunate in the number 

 of new conifers he introduced, amongst which were Abies Veitchii^ A. 

 firma, Picea hojidoensis, P. polita, several pines, and, for the first time in 

 quantity, the umbrella pine (Sciadopitys vertidllatd). 



The foundation, in 1872, of the Arnold Arboretum at Jamaica Plain, 



