Horticultural Progress in the United States^ 



By the Late Peter Henderson. 



The tirst botanic garden of which \\c can uhlain 

 record in this cnunU}-, was c>tal)lislied in I'liihidelphia 

 by John IJertram in 1728, which gave an impetus to 

 horticultural taste in that city that enabled it for many 

 years (])ri)bal)ly up to 1850) to claim the ])ossessiiin of 

 the finest collection of plants, both private and com- 

 mercial, of an-\- city in the L'nion. New York started 

 later. .\ltlious>h wc find that, as early as 1750, places 

 were aiKertiscd fcn' sale nn Long Island, and among 

 the inducements nlTered to purchasers it was men- 

 tioned that they had "flower gardens attached"; and in 

 1756, nthers were ofl'ered as having "greenhotises filled 

 with trcjpical plants." To show indisputably that there 

 was some general taste for floriculture at that earh- 

 ]ieriod, we find that in 1751 a pottery at Whitestoiie, 

 L. L, is under way, and advertises that "any persons 

 desirous may be supplied with urns and flower ])i)ts 

 to adorn their gardens." In 1767, William Prince, of 

 Flusliing, offers a great \arjety of fruit trees, stich as 

 pear, apple, peach and ])lum, packed so that they can 

 be safelv sent to luiroiie ; and later, in 1774, in the Xew 



THK i.ATK pi-;ti-:u iikxdkkson. 



York Mercury of that year, this enterprising horti- 

 culturist advertises that lie has added ornamental trees 

 to his grounds, and ofl'ers "the Magnolias nf the Caro- 

 linas and other rare trees and shrubs." 



Mr. I'rincc was an enthusiast in all departments of 

 horticulture, and by the beginning of the present cen- 

 tury had added to his nursery of fruit and ornamental 

 trees a greenhouse department, which contained a very 

 fvdl collection for that time. In a "Short Treatise on 

 Horticulture," which he ])ublished in 1828, he describes 

 37 varieties of camellias, 1.5 species of aniarvllis, 90 va- 

 rieties of dahlias, and 67 species and varieties of pelar- 

 gonium, as being a portion of his collection. The 

 Prince Nursery at Flushing was then known as the 

 Linnean Botanic Garden, and had, by the wonderful 



*.\n essay read before the Ilorticiiltural .Society of New York by the late 



Pe-.er [tonrlerson. .March 9. 1880. The beginning of the twentieth centurv 



IS witnessing Mr. Ilenrlerson's hopes realized, for New York has aroused 

 an interest in horticulture. 



energy of its proprietor, a rare and interesting collec- 

 tion of trees and ])lants, some of which were eventually 

 lost to culti\atioii, until again introduced here from 

 Japan, l)y Mr, Thomas Hogg, notably among which 

 was the J.i])anese persimmon, now attracting consid- 

 erable attention as a new fruit for our Southern States, 



.Another botanist, Dr. David Hosock, started the El- 

 gin IJotanic Garden in this city, in 1801, and in his cata- 

 logue for 1811, nearly 3,000 species of plants were de- 

 scribed, among which 500 were greenhouse exotics. 

 The curator tjf the Elgin Botanic Garden at that. time 

 was a -Mr. Dennison, wdio began business as a florist 

 in 1814, in this city, at. a point near wdiere the Fifth 

 .\\enue Hotel now is, and which at his death, in 1822, 

 was leased to Thomas Hogg, wdio was the father of 

 the present Thomas Hogg, to whom the world is so 

 much indebted for his valuable introdtiction of Japa- 

 nese plants. A Mr. William Wilson, a contemporary 

 of Thomas Hogg, was the author of a btiok on Kitchen 

 Gardening, and was, with Dr. Hosock, one of the origi- 

 nators of the first Horticultural Society in New York, 

 in 1818. Another iirominent horticulturist of that day- 

 was Mr. Thomas Bridgeman, who kept a seed store at 

 Seventeenth street and Broadway, which is still man- 

 aged by his descendants. Mr. Bridgeman was the au- 

 thor of the "Gardeners' Assistant," a work having a 

 large sale, to which hundreds of European gardeners, 

 on coming here unac(|uainted -with the American cli- 

 mate and plants were much indebted. l!y 1840, com- 

 mercial horticulture had come to be liberally jjatrtiii- 

 ized, and nurseries, greenhouses, and market gardens 

 had been estalished of considerable extent in Long 

 Island, New Jei'sey, and New York Island, so that the 

 markets were lairly su])plied with fruits, flowers, and 

 vegetal)les, but meagre indeed to wdiat they are today. 

 The advancement in floriculture has' been much the 

 greatest. In those days the gorgeous designs formed 

 Ijy cut flowers, no^v such a feature in all our large 

 cities, had no existence, and the wonderful plants of 

 the tropics now seen in such prtifusion and variety em- 

 bellishing public or ])rivate entertainments, were al- 

 jnost unknown. In nothing, perhaps, has horticulture 

 advanced so much as in the beautiful designs that cut 

 flowers are made to form. an<l which in New York 

 today are unsurijassed by any city in the world. 



In 1844 the writer was an assistant in one of the then 

 largest floral establishments in New York Cit}-. If a 

 wreath was to be made, its base was usually a piece of 

 willow or a barrel hooji ; if a cross, two pieces of lath 

 ffjrmed the groundwork, and the work, when done, 

 was usually such as reflected but little credit on the 

 artist. l-]ouciuets were then about tin- only stvle of 

 design in cut flowers; these were usually made flat or 

 one-sided, the groundwork being arbor \iiae. through 

 \\ hich the stems of the flowers \vere drawn. Bou(|uets 

 niatle round were rare, for floral art had \-et developed 

 but few fitted to cope with such an undertaking, and 

 the few who did made poor work indeed. Our sales of 

 flowers at that establishment for New Year's Day in 

 1844 amounted to hardly $200; and probably for the 

 whole city of New York it did not exceed $1,000. Now, 

 it would probably be no exaggeration to say that New 

 York pays $50,000 for its flowers for decoration on that 

 day, and that its trade for the year for these perishable 

 commodities runs into the millions. 



It is estimated that there are 500 florist-' esialilish- 



