408 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



It is now more than twenty years that I have been out of the busi- 

 ness, but my acquaintance with nurserymen began when I was not half 

 grown, and has continued to the present time. 



I have no ax to grind, no boon to crave, no cowardly fear to re- 

 strain me. 



At Granville, Putnam county, Illinois, lived a man who was known 

 as father — we will call him Father Grimes, but his name was not Grimes, 

 and luckily for posterity he was not the father of anybody. Father 

 Grimes was a born enthusiast. He had zeal, without brains enough to 

 harber much knowledge. He was kind of heart, also of judgment, weak 

 and feeble tongued. His perception of colors was not acute, and his taste 

 was not discriminating, his view of farms was shadowy, and his grasp of 

 principles and his memory of facts were faint. He could read, and did 

 read, and I almost think it was a pity he could; but he pored over two 

 or three of the old time fruit books, while he had better been raising corn 

 and potatoes or looking after poultry. He had learned to bud, and did 

 his propagating that way. For miles around he sought out varieties. 

 Such orchards as had at that time began to bear were mostly seedlings. 

 Returning home with stores of apples collected he drew down his books 

 and campared his specimens with their discriptions of varieties. Of course 

 they must be something, and that something must be found in those 

 books. Some striped seedling of no value, perhaps from a worthless tree 

 became an Autumn strawberry, or a Chenango; a yellow apple of some 

 size, but -ever so poor in quality, became a Golden Pippin. An apple 

 somewhere near the right shape and size, found itself a Baldwin, a Van- 

 devere, or a Rhode Island Greening. He hastened to cut his buds to 

 suit his names, and staked them in the rows accordingly. Most of Fath- 

 er Grimes' small nursery was produced in that manner; and to that mis- 

 erably mixed up mess of stuff did scores of men go to get trees to set for 

 family orchards . I have no doubt but, when father Grimes knock- 

 ed at the gate away above, Peter met him and appointed him a seat 

 not high but comfortable. Let us hope that his good intentions formed 

 the ground for judgmgnt in his case; but we must regret that many fam- 

 ilies after waiting eight or ten years, found their apples very different 

 from what they had expected. 



ABOUT THIRTY MILES 



from our place lived another specimen of the frontier nurseryman, another 

 development of the times of forty years ago. A rushing farmer, large of 

 frame, strong of muscle, sharp and unscrupulous, plausible in his manner, 

 of persuasive speech, and of sufficient means. 



