STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 313 



MERCER COUNTY. 



A proper response to your request for a sketch of the Horticultural history of Mercer 

 county can only he given at a sacrifice of some personal delicacy on the part of the 

 writer 



The first settlement of t lii -^ county commenced about forty years ago. Favorite loca- 

 tions were chosen under the genial shelter of groves of timber. But the bottom lands 

 along th M --: sippi Ul nil's seined the most attractive to early settlers. At that time, 

 doubts were entertained by many, whether the high prairies would ever become settled, 

 owing to the j of timber. 



About thirty-five years ago a very small nursery of apple trees was planted on the 

 farm of Brady U'illit.-. under the Bluff. This little nursery of a fourth of an acre, was a 

 branch enterprise from an early Quaker settlement of Indiana. It was never continued 

 beyond th i first crop of trees, but it was the origin of a few of the oldest orchards of 

 thi- county. 



Subsequently the Overmans, who have since c retributed so largely to the horticultu- 

 ral interest of our State, brought several Loads of apple trees into this comity from 

 Fulton county, with wagons, a distance of sixty miles. The Overmans, being also of 

 Quaker des 'ent. It is worthy of note, that over a considerable portion of our western 

 country the first introduction of fruit culture, was due to the Quakers. It is also inter- 

 esting, in reviewing our present lists of apples, to find over one-third of our select lists 

 were included in the lists of the early Quakers. 



When the writer first came to this county in 1845, comparatively little had been done 

 in orchard planting. The first thing deemed necessary by one who had. set out to pay 

 homage to Pomona, was to visit the older nurseries of the State. Under some difficul- 

 ties in mod is ol travel, a visit was made to Curtis of Edgar Co., Harkness of Peoria Co., 

 Overmans Of Fulton Co., and others. 



Pome-Roy nursery was started on a hi^h prairie situation, and it is proper to add that 

 not among the least of the difficulties experienced by the proprietor, was that of very 

 limited means, a collection of varieties was procured firom various parts of the United 

 States, with an ambition to test their adaptation to our soil and climate as fast as possi- 

 ble in a specimen orchard. A peculiar enchantment hung about those unknown varie- 

 ties described in tie The peculiarities of growth was noted with much interest 

 in the nursery. From these observations Synonyms and discrepancies began to appear 



in our collect! in of Apples, for example, we had Vandervere, Newtown Spltzenberg, Ox 

 Eye, and several other names in om- Lid. that, from growth in the nursery was dis- 

 covered to be nil t/f s'ime. .Many such discrepancies were detected before trees were of 

 a saleable .-]/.<■. Such were some of the difficulties experienced by our horticulturists 

 many ye 



I' .Hi ■ Roy nursery being inland from any public conveyance, was only conducted 

 with the views of supplying borne demand; and thickly the farmers' wagons crowded 

 about the nursery in setting time. The limits of the nursery at no time exceeded six- 

 teen acres. The cold winter of '66 left behind it the blackness of death, and much dis- 

 couragement with nurserymen and planter-. Pome-Roy nursery was allowed to decline, 

 and forawhil — be it -aid to the discredit of the proprietor — the trade was nearly 

 surrendered to the t Oder mercies of itinerant tree peddlers. Concerning the frauds and 



