BOTANICAL GARDENS. 107 



only sixty-seven acres, and has nothing like the diversity of forma- 

 tion that the Central Park contains. 



The plan for making Central Park, like those parks, a botani- 

 cal garden as well, has existed since its foundation in 1857,* and 

 has come up again from time to time ; a costly beginning was pro- 

 jected under the Tweed regime, and the foundations were laid for 

 a large glass house, by which the little lake on the east side of the 

 park between Seventy-third and Seventy -fourth Streets was to be 

 roofed for the cultivation of Victoria regia and other fresh-water 

 plants. The money that was appropriated found takers enough, 

 but no building came out of it. 



Much might be accomplished in the Central Park with its rich 

 flora under expert and artistic administration, without great cost, 

 if only the majority of the trees and shrubs were marked with 

 their botanical and English names, as is done in the squares of 

 Philadelphia, Boston, and other cities ; and the people of the city 

 might thus be put in the way of becoming acquainted with at 

 least the native trees and bushes, and excited to some interest in 

 botany. The daily thousands of summer visitors pass by these 

 abundant groups of plants without any information to their names, 

 and without any means or motive for informing themselves re- 

 specting these objects that make the park attractive and beau- 

 tiful. This, however, is one of the most important purposes of the 

 botanical gardens of our time ; and the Central Park could fulfill 

 it as well as and even better than Regent's Park and Kensington 

 Garden and the plant-houses in Hyde Park in London. 



Of the eight hundred and forty acres in the Central Park, four 



* It may be of interest to mention here that after the once famous Hamilton Garden 

 near Philadelphia, which was managed for three years toward the end of the last century 

 by the famous botanist, Friedrich Pursh, New York has had the first botanical garden in 

 North America. It was established in 1801 by Dr. David ETosack, a physician, who came 

 to this country from Scotland, on a tract of about twenty acres, which he bought from the 

 city. It was situated several miles north of the city at the time, on the place of the pres- 

 ent square between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Streets. 

 The wooded, hilly land was cleared and laid out and surrounded by a stone wall, along 

 which the tall forest-trees were allowed to remain. In 1805 the garden was under high 

 cultivation, and contained over fifteen hundred species of American useful, medicinal, and 

 ornamental plants, a good hot-house, and an audience-room for botanical teaching. In 

 1806 and 1807 two hot-houses were added, and a number of West Indian and European 

 plants were put under cultivation. A catalogue printed in 180*7 gave the names of two 

 thousand species. The garden — which Dr. Hosack had named the Elgin Garden, after his 

 Scottish home — was regularly taken care of during the following years by the owner and 

 some wealthy lovers of plants ; but was sold in 1810, for want of means to carry it on, to 

 the State of New York, for seventy-three thousand dollars. With this, skillful direction of 

 the garden seems to have come to an end. It was committed in turn to the Regents of the 

 University of New York, the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and finally 

 to Columbia College. This wealthy corporation, by an arrangement with the State Legisla- 

 ture in 1816, annexed the garden, which had fallen into decay, and with this the once 

 widely known Elgin Botanical Garden, of New York, ceased to be. 



