3. Gardening in Ireland, in respect to Botanic Gardens, and the Culture of Flowers and Plants of Ornament
648. Botany and flower-gardening have been much neglected in Ireland. Parterres, it would appear (J. C. Walker's Hist.), came into notice during the reign of King William. Dr. Caleb Threlkeld was among the first of the few who formed private botanic gardens for their own use, and Sir Arthur Rawdon almost the only individual who displayed wealth and taste in collecting exotics. Upon visiting the splendid collection of Sir Hans Sloane, at Chelsea, Sir Arthur, delighted with the exotics there, sent James Harlow, a skilful gardener, to Jamaica, who returned with a ship almost laden with plants in a vegetating state. For these a hothouse was built at Moira, in the beginning of Charles the Second's reign, supposed to be the first erection of that kind in Ireland. In 1712, a small collection of plants was cultivated in the garden of the Dublin Medical College.
