SOCIETY OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS. 231 



ively engaged in the business, in the State. Our Illinois State Hor- 

 ticultural Society had started in 1855. 



Philadelphia, probabl}^ has the credit of one of the very first 

 nurserymen around there, a man by the name of Lehman ; must 

 have started somewhere about 1700. In our own State, I do not 

 know, for the moment, who might be the first. Friend Whitney 

 started in this place in 1813, a pretty early bird for this locality. 

 Ellsworth, of Naperville, started in 1848; Robert Douglas, that giant 

 in the tree line, one year before — 1847. In a list of the nursery- 

 men that I have of the United States for 1859, containing 355 

 names, out of these, what may be called the West for our purpose, 

 the State of Indiana had 13; Illinois, 56 ; Wisconsin, 12 ; Iowa, 19. 



In a list of the past year, gotten up through florists' interests 

 mainly, for our State there are 1111 names : but out of this great 

 number there are but 73 with the nurserymen's initial — N. alone. 

 In other words, 1048 are florists in whole or part. Of these 106 are 

 for Chicago alone, with surely half as many more in the outlaying 

 suburbs, and hardly a nurseryman among them. There are two only 

 worthy the name in or near Chicago that I know of. My idea is 

 that the grand period for nurserymen in our State was, say from 

 1860 to the crisis of 1873, and that since, if the business has 

 not actually gone back, it has not advanced. 



With the florists it is exactly the reverse. Their growth 

 throughout the whole country, village and city has been phenomenal, 

 I think even away ahead of the Old World ; at least, in cut flowers, 

 — notably in rose culture. One of the largest of New York men, 

 still in the harness, in 1844 had a S200 business, where now it would 

 foot up a cool $100,000. ' And all this for the fleeting moment ; 

 thousands of dollars for the eye for a night, — to-morrow for the 

 dust-bin. 



A nurseryman will prepare you a young sapling that, rightly 

 taken care of, will be a joy to the owner from its planting to when 

 one hundred years are gone ; with a fruit tree that will bring forth 

 of its kind, that is health to the possessor and all who may partake ; 

 can furnish you with the good old-fashioned flowers of our grand- 

 mother's gardens, that will stand even the biting blasts of our prairie 

 winter; but the citizen of this good year. 1889, just commencing, pass 

 them all by, and for what? For a thing of beauty, certainly, for 

 every flower is that; but for the pleasures of a moment, for the 

 gaudy exotic, that the slightest breath of Jack Frost will destroy. I 

 do not murmur at this, save and except that with the florist's pros- 

 perity, I wish I could see our old stand-by, the nurseryman, come in 

 for a share ; one who could make our homes blossom with something 

 besides the tender denizen of the tropics ; gives us choice trees, ever- 

 greens and shrubs, but of a hardy, sturdy nature. 



It would not be seemly in me, Mr. Chairman, to say one word 



