Thomas Main (ca. 1753-ca. 1813), originally of Scotland, ran a nursery on land rented near Georgetown. By the fall of 1802, he was cultivating and advertising the sale of indigenous thorn bushes. He developed a reputation for expertise on thorns and published instructional pamphlets on the growth and care of those plants. TJ kept up a correspondence with Main and on several occasions purchased hedges, trees, and seeds for the creation of live fences. The first major order was in March 1805, when TJ obtained 4,000 thorns from Main’s nursery (Wesley E. Pippenger, comp., District of Columbia Probate Records: Will Books 1 through 6, 1801-1852, and Estate Files, 1801-1852 [Bowie, Md., 2003], 382; David B. Warden, A Chorographical and Statistical Description of the District of Columbia [Paris, 1816], 117-22; Main, Directions for the Transplantation and Management of Young Thorn or Other Hedge Plants, Preparative to Their Being Set in Hedges [Washington, D.C., 1807; Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends No. 723]; National Intelligencer, 15 Nov. 1802; Betts, Garden Book description begins Edwin M. Betts, ed., Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book, 1766-1824, Philadelphia, 1944 description ends , 299, 313, 342; RS description begins J. Jefferson Looney and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Princeton, 2004–  description ends , 2:131–2; MB description begins James A. Bear, Jr., and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767-1826, Princeton, 1997, 2 vols. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 2:1148, 1182, 1208; Joseph Dougherty to TJ, 22 Mch. 1805).

the Letter: TJ to James Currie, 29 Oct.