human
Bartram's Garden, now a public park, where John Bartram established the first botanic garden in America, and where his descendants in 1899 celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of his birth on June 2, 1699. His grandfather was one of the companions of William Penn, and John Bartram, who was a farmer, mastered the rudiments of the learned languages, became passionately devoted to botany, and was pronounced by Linnæus the greatest natural botanist in the world. Bartram bought his little place of about seven acres in 1728, and built himself a stone house, which still exists, bearing the inscription, cut deep in a stone,
gpt
John and Ann Bartram, 1731. He wrote to a friend describing how he became a botanist:
human
One day I was very busy in holding my plough (for thou seest I am but a ploughman), and being weary, I ran under a tree to repose myself. I cast my eyes on a daisy; I plucked it mechanically and viewed it with more curiosity than common country farmers are wont to do, and I observed therein many distinct parts. 'What a shame,' said my mind, or something that inspired my mind, 'that thou shouldst have employed so many years in tilling the earth and destroying so many flowers and plants without being acquainted with their structure and their uses.'