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ees 
LV PREFACE, 
return daily, affording conveyances the most convenient and 
pleasurable to such citizens as delight in a rural retreat during 
the verdant season. ‘The venerable founder, after having ac- 
quired for his garden an extensive fame, died ia the year 1802, 
at an advanced age, teaving his son, tite present proprietor, 
in the possession of his collection; who has, ata great ex- 
pense, imported from almost every country in Europe, and 
also from Asia and Africa, such trees and plants as were best 
calculated to improve and ornament the Orchard, the Garden, 
and the Green-house. 
The immense fosses which have frequently occurred by 
plants rotting and-dying on the voyage of importation, have 
caused the disbursements in this way.to be very great; the 
same plant has, in some instances, been imported the twentieth. 
‘time before it survived, and thousands of dollars have been ex- 
_ pended in importations and experiments, from which no pecu- 
niary benefits have been derived. It has also been necessary 
to import a very extensive variety, in order to make the pro- 
per selection of those kinds which were most congenial to our 
climate; and the present collection of fruits is the result of much 
' investigation, and is selected from a very large number, a por- 
tion of which had'to be rejected on account of their indifference 
in quality, the smail quantity they. yielded, or their unsuitable-. 
ness to our climate. it is, therefore, not without great exer- 
tions, attended with an immense expense, that the collection 
has been increased to above 4,000 species and varieties, many 
of which, from being objects of curiosity alone, or held in es- 
teem only as tliey regard science, yield no remuneration. 
As medical practice is so nearly connected with the science 
of Botany, it is the desire of the proprietor to add to the esta- 
blishment all exotics which have been celebrated for their me- 
‘dicinal properties; and arrangements.have been made, which 
will greatly extend that part of tlie collection, and by far the 
greater number of those which are natives of our own.country, 
and whose medicinal virtues have been. established by the in- 
vestigations of Drs. Bigelow and Barton, and which have been 
fivured in their respective publications, will already be found 
in the collection. It has also been an object of particular con- 
sideration, to extend as much as possible the number of the 
Indigenous Vegetable productions of our own country gene- 
rally; but, in a country so extensive as our’s, and where so few 
gentlemen of Botanic science are found in its remoter regions, 
these exertions, although crowned with much success, have also 
been necessarily attended with yery great, and, in some cases, 
‘ afd % 
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