416 THE BOOK OF EVERGREENS. 



tributed Marshall's love for "botany, as the latter did not 

 commence planting his garden until he was 51 years of 

 age. Previous to this, however, he had become quite 

 celebrated as a collector of seeds and young plants for 

 European botanists. 



These grounds are at the present time sadly neglected, 

 and but a few of the original trees remain ; yet they 

 remind the visitor of that deep-seated love for nature, 

 which, amidst all the difficulties attending a pioneer in sci- 

 ence, influenced his declining years. Here lived and died 

 the fii*st American author on trees and plants, a self- 

 made, self-educated man. 



These grounds at the present time contain so few speci- 

 mens of the Conifera?, that it is not necessary to enumer- 

 ate them here. A few of the commoner species of Pines 

 and Firs are all that IIOAV remain ; and in a few short 

 years these too will, in all probability, be cut for fuel, as 

 this appears to be all the value our country friends see in 

 them. 



About the year 1800 two brothers, Joshua and Samuel 

 Peirce, residing a few miles south-west of West Chester, 

 Pa., commenced their collection of trees, consisting prin- 

 cipally of the well-known Conifers. They were mostly 

 planted in a double avenue, extending some distance from 

 their dwelling to a beautiful small lake at the rear of the 

 premises. After a lapse of sixty-seven years, these trees 

 have grown to 'an immense size, and present the most -im- 

 posing sight imaginable. This little select arboretum is, 

 as Dr. Darlington has recorded, " certainly unrivalled in 

 Pennsylvania, and probably not surpassed in these United 

 States." A few years since there appeared in the Horti- 

 culturist a series of articles, entitled, " The Parks and 

 Pleasure Grounds of Pennsylvania," written by a talented 

 correspondent signed "^?." One of these contributions 

 was devoted to a description of Peirce's Park, and in it 



