122 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 422. 



gress or of the State Legislature hesitates before he intro- 

 duces or votes for a bill which is simply to protect natural 

 scenery for his own sake. He seems so fearful of being 

 sneered at as sentimental or unpractical, that he is com- 

 pelled to manufacture some excuse for doing what is 

 plainly dictated by enlightened public policy. Before any 

 provision can be made for protecting the Palisades, Con- 

 gressmen have to be assured that they have a military or 

 strategic importance, which, no doubt, is true. It ought to 

 be enough for the country to know that this wall of rock is 

 the most dignified natural spectacle near the chief mari- 

 time city of the continent. A people, entrusted with a 

 possession like this, deserve to be stigmatized as vandals 



that he bought land on the west bank of the Schuylkill and 

 built the main portion of his house (see pp. 122 and 123), 

 and it is the second wife's name that appears on the panel 

 in the south gable, "John and Ann Bartram, 1 73 1. '' 



The land lay along a beautiful reach of the Schuylkill, 

 between Gray's Ferry and Point Breeze ; the greater por- 

 tion was rolling, other portions were marshy, but Bartram 

 irrigated, drained and improved these swampy reaches, 

 adding more land, until he possessed upward of six hun- 

 dred acres. After his death this was divided and subdi- 

 vided, but throughout all changes and divisions the greater 

 portion of the Garden remained intact, and was owned by 

 those who were either attached to it, or interested in it, so 



Fig. 13.— John Bartram's House — east front. 



if they do not transmit it unimpaired as a secure inherit- 

 ance to their children. 



It cost years of effort to wake the people up to the 

 point of organizing some protection for Niagara ; certainly 

 there ought to be enough public virtue left in the state to 

 restrain the Legislature from facing about to undo one of 

 the best pieces of work ever accomplished. 



Bartram's Garden To-day. 



THE near approach of the two hundredth anniversary 

 of John Bartram's birth should arouse a widespread 

 interest in the work now in progress at his Garden, under 

 the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania. 



John Bartram was born at Darby, Pennsylvania, on 

 March 23d, 1699 ; he received his early education in that 

 vicinity, where his body now lies. He was twice married, 

 and it was about the time of his second marriage, in 1728, 



that in its life of more than a century and a half it has 

 suffered less change than any other portion of the estate. 



The original Garden comprised about five acres, begin- 

 ning on the higher ground, a short distance west of the 

 house, and extended beyond it toward the river. All of 

 this land is included in the tract of about twelve acres, pur- 

 chased some five years ago from the Eastwick estate by 

 the city of Philadelphia. The city now owns, but has not 

 yet taken possession of, land adjoining on the north, and it 

 hopes shortly to acquire more of the Eastwick prop- 

 erty adjoining on the south. The acquisition of the Bar- 

 tram property, through the instrumentality of Mr. Thomas 

 Meehan, the press, and the generosity of public-spirited per- 

 sons throughout the country, is generally known. From time 

 to time articles have appeared in the Philadelphia papers 

 reflecting on the management. Many of these displayed 

 a complete misunderstanding of the character of the place 

 anil its requirements, and most of them an ignorance of 



