20 THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
“we have of the introduction of many of the timber trees are 
given by botanists and apothecaries in London, who gathered 
together every description of foreign herbage, and formed the 
most extensive collections of medicinal plants extant at that 
time. In Turner's Herbal, published at different times about 
the middle of the sixteenth century, he notices the introduction 
of the common spruce fir, the stone pine, the evergreen 
cypress, the sweet bay, and the walnut. Towards the end of 
that century, Gerrard, who had a physic-garden in Holborn, 
London, published the first edition of his Catalogue, which 
gives an account of the introduction of the pineaster, the 
laburnum, and a considerable number of smaller trees and 
shrubs. The evergreen oak and the arbor-vite were also 
introduced during that century. 
In the seventeenth century, it appears that Dr. Compton, 
who was Bishop of London from 1675 to 1713, introduced a 
considerable number of exotic trees, and advanced this branch 
of rural improvement more than any other individual of his 
time, having imported many of our best trees, chiefly from 
America. Botanic gardens began to be established through- 
out England about the middle of this century, which greatly 
facilitated the introduction of hardy trees. 
In Scotland, the Botanic Garden of Edinburgh was formed 
in 1680, and in 1683 the cedar of Lebanon was introduced 
into it; and in the same year it was planted by Bishop 
Compton at Fulham, and also in the Chelsea Botanic Garden. 
According to the Hortus Kewensis, the most important foreign 
trees introduced in this century, besides the cedar, were the 
silver fir, the larch, the horse-chestnut, the acacia (locust-tree), 
the scarlet maple, the Norway maple, the American plane, 
the scarlet oak, the weeping willow, balsam poplar, balm of 
Gilead, fir, the cork-tree, and the black and the white 
American spruce firs, besides a great many smaller trees and 
shrubs. During the early part of this century, the British 
arboretum appears to have been greatly indebted to Parkinson, 
a physician in London, who possessed a large collection of 
plants, and was appointed apothecary to James 1. Parkinson 
