42 NOTES AND 



Speaking of the particular situation of the Botanic Garden of this state, a 

 british writer, in the London Medical and Physical Journal, among other re 

 marks, has the following : 



u No region of the earth seems more appropriate to the improvement of bot- 

 any, by the collecting and cultivating of plants, than that where the Elgin 

 Botanic Garden is seated. Nearly midway between the northern and south- 

 ern extremities of the vast american continent, and not more than forty degrees 

 to the north of the equator, it commands resources of incalculable extent j and 

 the european botanist wiil look to it for additions to his catalogue, of the high- 

 est interest. The indigenous botany of America possesses most important 

 qualities ; and to that, we trust, professor Hosack, the projector, and, indeed, 

 the creator, of this garden, will particularly turn his attention. It can hardly 

 be considered as an act of the imagination, so far does what has already been 

 discovered countenance the most sanguine expectations, to conjecture, that m 

 the unexplored wilderness of mountain, forest, arid marsh, which composes so 

 much of the western world, lie hidden plants of extraordinary forms and potent 

 qualities." 



Soon after the purchase, the proprietor, at a very considerable expense, had 

 the ground cleared and put in a state of cultivation, arranged in a manner the 

 best adapted to the different kinds of vegetables, and planted agreeably to the 

 most approved style of ornamental gardening. A conservatory for the preser- 

 vation of the more hardy greenhouse plants was also built. At the commence- 

 ment of 1805 nearly fifteen hundred species of american plants, beside a conside- 

 rable number of rare and valuable exotics, were in cultivation in this institution. 

 In 1806 very important additions were made to this collection of plants from 

 various parts of Europe, as well as from the East and West Indies. A second 

 building for their preservation was also erected, and the foundation of a 

 third was laid, which was completed in the following year. In the autumn 

 of the same year, 1S06, a catalogue of the plants, both native and exotic 

 which hail been already collected, and which amounted to nearly two thou- 

 sand, was published. Since that time the Botanic Garden has been greatly 

 improved. The buildings, which are erected on the most recent plan adopted in 

 institutions of this kind, consist of three large and well-constructed houses, 

 exhibiting! a -front of one hundred and eighty feet. The greater part of the 

 ground is brought in a state of the highest cultivation, and divided into various 

 compartments, calculated for the instruction of the student of botany and 

 medicine, and made, subservient to agriculture and the arts. A greater part 

 of the establishment i? surrounded by a belt of forest trees and shrubs, and 

 these again are enclosed by a stone wall two and a half feet in thick Bej?v 7 

 3nd seven feet in height 



