
          III

by his daughter, Mrs. McMurtrie. This you will also have the goodness 
to present in my name to the society, and I trust they will
consider it worthy of a place in their Transactions.

With the best wishes for the prosperity of your institution,
I remain dear sir,
Yours respectfully,
New-York, Oct.28, 1818.                          David Hosack."

The name of the pear mentioned in the foregoing letter, it may
be well to remark, is not correctly spelled. The true spelling is
Seckel, and such is the manner in which the family from whom the
name of the pear is derived still spell their name, and your correspondent 
has seen it so spelled upon the large brass door plate of
a residence in Philadelphia. The incorrect spelling of this name
was introduced into English horticulture in consequence of the letter
of Dr. Hosack by whom the pear was first made known to European
pomologists, and the error has not even yet been entirely corrected,
to judge by some very modern catalogues. The article from the 3d.
vol. of the Trans. of the Hort. Soc. of London, is followed and accompanied 
in compliance with the suggestion made in the letter from
Dr. Hosack, by a very excellent colored engraving of the Seckel Pear,
representing a cluster of four pears, together with the wood and
leaves of the branch supporting them.

The "Jacob Weiss," mentioned by Judge Wallace of Burlington, to
Dr. Hosack, is without doubt the same party referred to by the late
Bishop White of Philadelphia, under the name of "Dutch Jacob" in the
account of the origin of the Seckel pear given by that venerated prelate,
and which is quoted by Downing, in a note, in his "Fruits and
Fruit Trees of America."

Mr. William Coxe was for several years a member of Congress from
New Jersey, but such was his fondness for pomology, that notwithstanding 
the many demands upon his time, in consequence of his political
and other pursuits, he still found leisure to collect materials for
an enlarged and elegant edition of his work on Fruit Trees. This,
unfortunately, he did not live to bring to perfection. It had been
his intention that the second edition should have contained beautiful
colored engravings, to accompany the descriptions of each of the
fuirts [fruits] mentioned in his book. For this purpose, his daughter, Mrs.
McMurtrie, (still living in Philadelphia,) and her accomplished sisters, 
had prepared numerous accurate drawings, of life size, upon
Bristol-board, of the fruits to be represented, and then painted
        