Hortus Elginensis: or a catalogue of plants, indigenous and exotic, cultivated in the Elgin Botanic Garden, in the vicinity of the city of New-York. Established in 1801 / by David Hosack.

  • Hosack, David, 1769-1835.
Date:
1811
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hortus Elginensis: or a catalogue of plants, indigenous and exotic, cultivated in the Elgin Botanic Garden, in the vicinity of the city of New-York. Established in 1801 / by David Hosack. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PREFACE. r*|S 1 HE establishment of a Botanic Garden in the United States, as a repository of the native plants of this country, and as subservient to the purposes of medicine, agriculture, and the arts, is doubtless an object of great importance. Impressed with the advantages to be derived from an insti¬ tution of this nature, I have anxiously endeavoured ever since my appointment to the professorship of Botany and Materia Medica in Columbia College, to accomplish its establishment. Disappointed, however, in my first appli¬ cations to the Legislature of this State, soliciting their as¬ sistance in so expensive and arduous an undertaking, 1 re¬ solved to devote my own private funds to the prosecution of this object; trusting, that when the nature of the institution should be better, and more generally known, and its utility fully ascertained, it would receive the patronage and sup¬ port of the public. Accordingly, in the year 1801, I purchased of the Cor¬ poration of the city of New-York, twenty acres of ground, situated on the middle road between Bloomingdale and Kingsbridge, and distant from the city about three miles and an half. The view from the most elevated part, is va¬ riegated and extensive, and the soil itself of that diversified nature, as to be particularly well adapted to the cultivation of a great variety of vegetable productions. The greater 1