(325) 
having about 2,000 species of plants, with one spacious green- 
house and two hot-houses, presenting a frontage of 180 feet. 
The plots devoted to plants were encircled by shrubs and 
trees; and the whole ground enclosed by a stone wall seven 
feet high and two and one half feet thick. Pursh was for a 
number of years the curator. 
The early descriptive tract above referred to says: 
‘A nursery is also begun for the ee of anes 
into this country the choicest fruits of the t : whic 
the proprietor has been enabled to procure on various — 
of the world, and from which the establishment wl? hereafter 
derive one of the principal sources of tts support” — an ex- 
pectation which, of course, was but slightly realized. 
Dr. Francis in his ‘Old New York” (pp. 28-29) says: 
‘¢In 1807 the garden was a triumph of individual zeal, 
ambition and liberality, of which our citizens had reason to be 
proud. The eminent projector of this garden, with princely 
munificence, had made these grounds a resort for the ad- 
mirers of Nature’s vegetable wonders and for the students of 
her mysteries.” * 
The Sale to the State. — Dr. Hosack’s expenditures upon 
the garden, according to his ‘* Statement” (p. 56), must have 
exceeded $100,000. Unable to sustain this burden, and dis- 
appointed in his appeals to the Legislature for support in 
1805 and 1806, he was compelled in 1808 to offer the garden 
for sale. Upon the advice of many friends, in order to pre- 
serve it from extinction, he petitioned the Legislature in 
1808 and again in 1809 to purchase and maintain it as an aid 
in medical education. Failing in the latter year by only six 
votes, the petition was renewed in 1810, supported by special 
memorials from the mayor, the common council of the city, 
the governors of the New York Hospital, the County Medical 
Society and five other medical societies of the state, and by 
many of the most prominent citizens and numerous medical 
* Soon after the garden was established, the site of the present cathedral 
at 5oth Street was purchased for the Jesuit College, the garden opposite being 
one of the attractions to that block. That college was carried on for a num- 
ber of years. See U. S. Catholic Soc. Hist. Records, 4: 329-334. 1906. 
