82 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Speaking of the particular situation of the Botanic Garden of this state, a British writer, 

 in the London Medical and Physical Journal, among other remarks, has the following : 



" No region of the earth seems more appx'opriate to the improvement of botany, by the 

 collecting and cultivating of plants, than that where the Elgin Botanic Garden is seated. 

 Nearly midway between the northern and southern extremities of the vast American con- 

 tinent, and not more than forty degrees to the north of the equator, it commands resources 

 of incalculable extent ; and the European botanist will look to it for additions to his cata- 

 logue of the highest interest. The indigenous botany of America possesses most im- 

 portant qualities, and to that, we trust, Professor Hosack, the projector, and, indeed, the 

 creator, of this garden, will particularly turn his attention. It can hardly be considered 

 as an act of the imagination, so far does what has already been discovered countenance 

 the most sanguine expectations, to conjecture, that in the unexplored wilderness of moun- 

 tain, forest, and marsh, which composes so much of the western world, lie hidden plants 

 of extraordinary forms and potent qualities." 



Soon after the purchase, the proprietor, at a very considerable expense, had the 

 ground cleared and put in a state of cultivation, arranged in a manner the best adapted 

 to the different kinds of vegetables, and planted ageeably to the most approved style of 

 ornamental gardening. A conservatory for the preservation of the more hardy green- 

 house plants wa3 also built. At the commencement of 1805 nearly fifteen hundred 

 species of American plant?, beside a considerable number of rare and valuable exotics, 

 were in cultivation in this institution. In 1806 very important additions were made to 

 this collection of plants from various parts of Europe, as well as from the East and 

 West Indies. A second building for their preservation was also erected, and the foun- 

 dation of a third was laid, which was completed in the following year. In the autumn 

 of the same year, 1806, a catalogue of the plants, both native and exotic, which had been 

 already collected, and which amounted to nearly two thousand, was published. Since 

 that time the Botanic Garden has been greatly improved. The buildings, which are 

 erected on the most recent plan adopted in institutions of this kind, consist of three 

 large and well-constructed houses, exhibiting a front of one hundred and eighty feet. 

 The greater part of the ground is brought in a state of the highest cultivation, and divi- 

 ded into various compartments, calculated for the instruction of the student of botany 

 and medicine, and made subservient to agriculture and the arts. A greater part of the 

 establishment is surrounded by a belt of forest trees and shrubs, and these again are 

 enclosed by a stone wall two and a half feet in thickness, and seven feet in height. 



The expense requisite to effect these several purposes far exceeding the calculations 

 the proprietor had originally formed, and being desirous of perpetuating the institution, 



