Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/860

842 spent the rest of his life, except the winter months, on the beautiful estate at Hyde Park, on the banks of the Hudson, which he had owned for a number of years. Here he devoted himself to agriculture and to growing plants of botanical interest. "He carried with him," his son remarks, "the same ardor and zeal which had been so characteristic of him in his professional career. He introduced into the country many of the finest breeds of cattle, sheep, and swine, which he imported at great expense from abroad. The grounds were cultivated in the best possible manner, and the most esteemed fruits and vegetable productions of the country were made to thrive in the greatest luxury possible."

In the autumn of 1835 Dr. Hosack removed as usual to his city residence, and a few weeks after was seized with apoplexy which terminated his existence. One morning in December he went out and did some business errands, and on his return home found he was paralyzed in his right arm. His speech was also affected. He received immediate attention from his son, Dr. A. E. Hosack, and later from several of his professional friends. But their efforts were of no avail. His symptoms became worse, and four days after the attack, on December 22d, he passed away. His body was placed in the family vault in the marble cemetery in Second Street.

One of the surest ways in which an eminent man can cause his influence to live after him is in training up younger men to lives of usefulness. This Dr. Hosack was constantly doing. "I can scarcely recollect the time," says his son, "when he was without some such protégé." At one time it was the son of a New York carpenter, who unfortunately fell a victim to his devotion to yellow-fever patients in the epidemic of 1798. At another it was a young Frenchman, who without means, had come to America to study its flora, his family having been forced to leave France on account of the Revolution there. Dr. Hosack took him into his family and educated him as a physician. He returned to France and became eminent as a botanist. This was Prof. Delile, who accompanied Napoleon to Egypt as the botanist of his scientific corps, and was afterward superintendent of the Jardin des Plantes at Montpellier. Among Dr. Hosack's regular pupils at the College of Physicians and Surgeons was John Torrey, and many other students who heard his lectures at the medical school or at Columbia College had whatever of inclination toward botany they possessed greatly quickened by the enthusiasm and eloquence of Dr. Hosack.