104 



THE 00L0QI8T 



tions, and had collected from coast 

 to coast. 



Mr. Childs was a great friend of 

 John Burroughs, and I had the pleas- 

 ure of meeting Mr. Burroughs at Mr. 

 Childs' home, where we were both 

 visitors at the same time. The fol- 

 lowing data gives a good sketch of 

 Mr. Childs' life. The photos are, no 

 doubt, the last pictures taken of Mr. 

 Childs before his death. They were 

 taken on a picnic to Royal State, 

 Palm Beach, Florida, New Years Day, 

 1921. The single picture of Mr. 

 Childs we called "Uncle John pawn- 

 ing his overcoat," and he was much 

 pleased with it and the 'title' he 

 wrote. The other photo taken the 

 same day shows Mr. Childs with both 

 hands on the arms of my oldest son; 

 next to him with gray head and mus- 

 tache, the well known veteran Con- 

 chologist, Dr. Chas. Torrey Simpson; 

 the writer with arm linked in that of 

 Dr. Simpson; and the writer's wife 

 and other three children and Mr. 

 Dorian, wife and child. It was a 

 merry party and how he enjoyed the 

 beautiful over-loaded fruit groves of 

 Redlands, Princeton, Homestead and 

 Perrine. Mr. Childs marvelled as 

 others do, how such fine fruit could 

 grow on such stony land. The visit 

 did him "worlds of good," he wrote 

 soon after returning to his home, but 

 ere long, he wrote me, "he was feel- 

 ing badly again and was starting for 

 California in hopes to wind up his 

 business there and eliminate that tedi- 

 ous trip yearly in the future." We 

 who saw him last, cannot but feel 

 that had he not taken that long trip 

 in his poor physical condition, he 

 would have been alive today. We 

 shall miss his visits greatly, and the 

 whole family feel like I do, that a 

 loving, big-hearted friend has left a 

 place that cannot be filled. While in 

 California he wrote me, "he was dis- 

 couraged over Mr. Burroughs' health," 



and it was a Strang coincident that 

 both he and Mr. Burroughs should die 

 in the train enroute home from Cali- 

 fornia. 



Harold H. Bailey, 

 Miami Beach, Fla. 



JOHN LEWIS CHILDS 



John Lewis Childs, the widely 

 known fiorist and nurseryman of 

 Floral Park and Flowerfield, N. Y., 

 died suddenly Saturday, March 5, 

 while on a New York Central train, 

 between Albany and New York, on 

 his return from a visit to California'. 

 His death was not discovered until 

 the porter of the Pullman car went 

 to arouse him as the train arrived in 

 New York. 



Mr. Childs was born at Jay, Me , 

 May 1-3, 1856, and received a public 

 school education in that town. In 

 1874 he went to Long Island, taking 

 a position at East Hinsdale, near 

 Hempstead, with a florist, and room- 

 ing over a store in the village. Here 

 a year later he leased a few acres of 

 land and started the nucleus of what 

 was to become ultimately an enorm- 

 ous seed and plant business. His 

 first seed catalogue contained eight 

 pages and there were only 600 copies 

 printed. Subsequently he bought a 

 large tract of land adjacent to East 

 Hinsdale, at what is now the incor- 

 porated village of Floral Park, and 

 founded the settlement which became 

 the village, giving to it its name and 

 making his headquarters in it. Fif- 

 teen years from his starting in busi- 

 ness, his name, through his far- 

 reaching advertisements, was known 

 throughout the world. He used 

 whole pages in magazines and period- 

 icals of all sorts and published the 

 Mayflower, a' horticultural publication 

 which eventually attained a circula- 

 tion of over half a million. This, 

 with his catalogues, was printed in a 

 well equipped printing plant which 



