EARLY HISTORY OF HORTICULTURE. 339 



In Hovey's Magazine of Horticulture for 1851, under the head of "Descrip- 

 tions and Engravings of Select Varieties of Apples," he says : " The Fameuse, 

 though an apple of American origin, and known to most European writers on 

 fruit from the time of Forsyth, does not appear to have been generally known 

 to American pomological authors. Neither Thatcher or Cox, the earliest 

 authorities, notice it. Mr. Kendrick was the first to give a full account of it, in 

 his American Orchardist. That a variety of so much merit should have not 

 been long since more extensively cultivated is somewhat surprising; for as an 

 autumn apple, both on the score of beauty and excellence, it has few superiors." 



THE OLD KURSERIES. 



Mr. William L. Woodbridge started a small nursery, mostly of pear trees, on 

 his father's farm in 1833, when a schoolboy. With the help of one man and the 

 attention he could give it, he was quite successful in raising trees. He raised 

 many apples and pears from seed, and some of them were very superior in 

 beauty and flavor. He raised some trees from seeds of the Snow apple ; the 

 grain was finer and the skin lighter colored than the true Snow aj^ple, but the 

 flesh had the peculiar flavor and snowy whiteness of its parent. 



In 1836 Mr. Woodbridge sold between three and four hundred pear trees 

 from his nursery, to be taken to Chicago. Among them were the Seckel, 

 Summer Bon Chretien, French and English Jargonelle, Pound, Bartlett, and 

 White Doyenne. He thinks this was the first lot of pear trees sold from a 

 Detroit nursery, and that his was the only nursery in Detroit at that time, and 

 it was not a verv extensive one. 



In the autumn of 1830, or thereabouts, Gov. Woodbridge bought in New 

 York twenty thousand small trees and plants, and had them shipped from 

 Bufialo on a schooner for Detroit. On the way up the vessel put into Huron, 

 and was obliged to remain there until spring, being frozen in. When she 

 arrived at Detroit the trees and plants were found to be dead, the whole lot 



being a total loss. 



THE YPSILANTI NURSERY. 



One of the first nurseries established in Michigan, was the nursery of E. D. 

 & Z. K. Lay, near Ypsilanti. A short time since I addressed a note to Mr. E. 

 D. Lay, who still resides on his farm at Ypsilanti, asking some questions with 

 regard to his nursery, in answer to which I received the following, viz : 



Ypsilanti, February 10th, 1873. 



Sir : — At your request I send you an account of the nursery started and 

 carried on in the town of Ypsilanti, on the plains east of the now city of 

 Ypsilanti. 



In the spring of 1833 I came to Michigan, then a Territory, to select a place 

 for establishing a nursery, and selected the above location. In the fall of 1833, 

 my brother, Z, K. Lay, and myself came to Ypsilanti, and brought with us 

 about 25,000 cultivated trees ; mostly of one season's growth, from the nursery 

 of Asa Rowe, near Rochester, New York. They consisted of 130 varieties 

 of apples, 75 varieties of pears, 40 of peaches, three of apricots, three of nec- 

 tarines, 20 of cherries, 20 of plums, three of quinces, 15 of strawberries, 40 of 

 grapes, native and foreign, together with currants, gooseberries, raspberries, 

 etc. Also a large assortment of ornamental shrubs, evergreens, roses, peonies, 

 herbaceous perennial flowering plants, etc. 



