THE SEED BUSINESS IN PHILADELPHIA. 



wbicli the Philadelphia market now sustains — unrivalled by any city in the Union 

 Gradually following the bent of their excellent taste and cultivated minds, they added 

 commercial green-houses, which were the delight of the writer's youthful days. Rare 

 plants — then how rare ! — found their way, by their enterprise, to our borders, and a 

 business in these articles was commenced which has grown to be one of national 

 importance, and is especially successful here. I allude to the commerce in Camellias, 

 Roses, and rarer flowering plants, no less than trees. The Landreth Nurseries have 

 had an enviable celebrity, of which the descendants of these honorable dealers may 

 well be proud. I can recollect when all the intelligence of Philadelphia resorted there 

 to improve their taste and increase their collections. The whole town went out for 

 many seasons to see the blooming of the first Multiflora Rose, the collection of 

 Azaleas, and other valued novelties. The Madura for a hedge plant was first intro- 

 duced here, from seed brought by Lewis & Clark. The original fruit-bearing tree 

 was till lately a source of millions of seeds ; but, having attained the size of a large 

 Apple tree, it is now bowed down by many a blast, but in green old age. Orna- 

 mental Magnolias, especially the conspicua grafted on the acuminata, eminated exten- 

 sively from this garden, to which the most beautiful specimens of many other species 

 of trees and shrubs may be traced. Calm and industrious and truly honest in the 

 pursuit of their interesting business, these gentlemen lived long in the enjoyment 

 of their just reward, and the writer is mistaken in their characters, if their career 

 and intelligence was in the least inferior in importance to that of Bartram. In 

 a rather difterent line, and with a better home market, they took up the ball where 

 Bartram dropped it, kept it in motion, and popularized the pursuit, reaping a just 

 recompense. 



More fortunate than Bartram, a descendant, the son of David, carried on their 

 ever-increasing business, till competition in green-house and tree culture bad so 

 reduced the profits as to give less return than formerly. The old gentlemen had, 

 however, not neglected to supply a growing demand for vegetable seeds, to the culti- 

 vation of which they appropriated some ten, and then twenty, and afterwards the 

 enormous amount of thirty-five acres I " Landreth's seeds" acquired a great and 

 growing reputation ; the demand soon exceeded the supply, and gradually the tree 

 and green-house establishment had to give place to the approach of the city. The 

 mansion house has been converted to the uses of a public school, called after the 

 owners. The great stock of ornamental trees and shrubbery was dispersed by auction, 

 giving a supply eagerly embraced by purchasers, which has done much to embellish 

 our neighborhood. Laurel Hill Cemetery, now quite an arboricultural wonder for its 

 variety and beauty of planting, as well as hundreds of other beautiful places, owes 

 much of its ornamentation to this source. We must not omit the origin, at these 

 great nurseries, of the Camellia Landrethii, an exceedingly valuable variety, which is 

 destined to carry down to posterity the name so much respected among us. The 

 nursery and garden grounds soon grew too small for the ever-increasing seed busi- 

 ness ; other land was procured in the neighborhood, till the vexation and difficulty 

 became too great of collecting from distant fields the products in such demand from 



