By Joseph Sabine, Esq. 463 



Mr. Neill states that the seeds from whence the Ayr- 

 shire Rose was obtained were part of a packet received from 

 Canada or Nova Scotia, and it appears by his account, that 

 several plants of it were produced together. Mr. Douglas 

 further mentions, that a person, under the direction of Dr. 

 Hope of Edinburgh, was sent to Canada to collect hardy 

 plants and their seeds, for several noblemen and gentlemen 

 in Scotland, who defrayed the expense of the collection by 

 subscription, and that the Ayrshire Rose was raised, in 1768 

 or 1769, from seeds in the Earl of Loudon's share of the 

 produce of this mission.* 



No Rose having the slightest resemblance to the Ayrshire, 

 or to which it can possibly be assimilated, has been brought 

 to us, or described, from the American continent, and as we 

 are tolerably well acquainted with the plants of the northern 



* I have received from Mr. James Smith, nurseryman of Monkhood 

 Grove, near Ayr, an account of the introduction of the Ayrshire Rose into 

 that country, which differs from the history of its origin in the Earl of Loudon's 

 garden, and, if correct, would entirely remove the difficulty which exists of its 

 being supposed to have been raised from North American seeds. Mr. Smith's 

 account is, that he perfectly remembers the Rose, since he was eleven years 

 of age, which, at that time (in 1776) was growing in Mr. Dalrymple's 

 garden at Orangefield, where it was planted by John Penn, a Yorkshireman, 

 who was employed by the gentlemen of Ayrshire to keep their fox-hounds ; 

 Penn was a man of some education, and much attached to gardening, in con- 

 sequence of which Mr. Smith became acquainted with him, and received the 

 account now given from himself ; his statement was, that having been on a 

 visit to his friends in Yorkshire, he brought the original plant from some gentle- 

 man's garden in that country, to which it was supposed to have been introduced 

 from Germany, and planted it at Orangefield, when, from its covering some 

 buildings within view of the high road, it attracted notice, and so becoming an 

 object of curiosity, plants of it were distributed till it became generally culti- 

 vated in the neighbourhood. 



VOL. IV. 3 O 



