THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 67 



growing in a field belonging to John Bartram was first 

 described by the younger Miehaux in 1(S42, although it 

 appears to have been known much earlier, as " that particu- 

 lar species of oak that Dr. ^Mitchell found in tliy meadow," 

 seeds of which Peter Collinson asked from " my good friend 

 John," in March, 1750, w^as probably of this tree. It was 

 destroyed, but a seedling planted by Humphry Marshall 

 in his arboretum at Marshallton, more than a century 

 since, still survives.'^ 



It is said that Washington and Franklin made frequent 

 visits to the garden just prior to the Revolution, and used to 

 sit under the shade of the old grape-arbor, which was located 

 a few yards from the northern portion of the house. 

 They w^ould sit and talk, enjoying the delightful scene of 

 the w^ooded banks and meadows along the Schuylkill. It 

 has rightly been called the Washington Arbor. The stone 

 that Washington used to step upon in alighting from his 

 door-step to the sidewalk at the house in which he lived on 

 Sixth Street, below Market, w^as also until recently kept 

 under this arbor. At the southern end of the old mansion 

 you see an old pear tree still vigorous, spreading its 

 branches. This was called by John Bartram " The Petre 

 Pear Tree," from the fact of its having been raised from a 

 seedling sent over from England in 17G0 by Lady Petre. f 



* The following catalogue of plants prepared in 1807 will give some idea ot 

 the extent of the collections : '• A Catalogue of Trees, Shrubs and Herbaceous Plants, 

 indigenous to the United States of America, cultivated and disposed of by John 

 Bartram & Son at their Botanical Garden, Kingsessing, near Philadelphia. To which 

 is added a Catalogue of Foreign Plants collected from various parts of the Globe. 

 Philadelphia. Printed by Bartram and Reynolds, No. 58 North Second Street, 1807." 



fit is alive in 1899. In reply to a letter (189."i) presenting some of the pears to 

 Prof. L. H. Bailey, Cornell University, he writes me: "It is a famous old variety, 

 scarcely known, however, out of Bartram's own garden in Philadelphia. I had 

 never seen it before, and I am glad to add a photograph of it to my collection of 

 curiosities." The tree is seen to the right in the illustration of the south side of 

 Bartram's house. 



