THE BARBERRY IN IOWA 203 



(juestion of rust had commenced being discussed. Conse(|uently, 

 we stopped the growing of the plants in large quantities and merely 

 grew them as ornamental shrubs from then on. 



"Purple barberry, we did not commence growing to any great ex- 

 tent until along about 1890. I remember that we got our first stock 

 from the late Robert Douglas of Waukeegan, 111. There were many 

 other kinds of barberry that we had growing on our place during 

 these years, many of them are still old plants. I speak more especially 

 of Bcrhcris ilicifolia. There was a time that we considered this 

 hardy, but during the last ten years it has almost all gone out. 



"Aly father was the first man, as far as known, in Iowa to grow 

 Bcrhcris Thunhcrgii. Ours was imported from the Sargent Bo- 

 tanical Gardens about fifty years ago." 



The honorable Silas Wilson, formerly of Atlantic, Iowa, a large 

 grower of grapes, apple trees and other trees and shrubs, wrote me 

 that he had never sold barberry. 



Mr. D. C. Snyder of the Linn county nursery informs me that a 

 common barberry in their fruit yard in Center Point, must have been 

 planted in 1878. They started to sell the common barberry in 1892, 

 but there was not much demand for it. He says : "You might be 

 interested to know that the writer's first recollection of shrubbery 

 was of a large barberry bush near our house. From the size of the 

 bush at the time and the writer's age, it must have been planted at 

 least forty years ago, as it was a very large specimen and bore 

 great quantities of fruit. Very likely this bush was received from 

 Patten at Charles City, as Father secured most of his nursery stock 

 there." 



The Iowa Seed Company also began to distribute them, with 

 other ornamental plants, along in the nineties. Captain Watrous 

 of Des Moines probably sold the barberry in the eighties or late 

 seventies. Mr. Markel of the Watrous Nursery Company says they 

 were in stock in 1898 and had been sold for some years previous to 

 that. The Earl Ferris Nursery Company of Hampton say they 

 never sold many, except a few locally. Mr. D. S. Lake of the 

 Shenandoah Nursery Company writes that they sold the purple 

 leaved barberry for foi^ty-nine years and in early years never sold 

 large amounts. 



Mr. H. A. Johns of the Sioux City Seed Company began to sell 

 the purple leaved barberry in 1884 and the B. Thunhcrgii in 1900. 

 Mr. E. S. Welch of the Mount Arbor Nurseries of Shenandoah says 



