iat 
horticulture, as the word is now understood, was a comparatively 
late development. So in the conquest of America by the white 
race, agriculture was one of the first industries, but it was 236 
years after the discovery of America by Columbus before the 
first botanic garden was established in America. This was the 
garden of John Bartram, in Philadelphia, dating from 1728. 
Portions of this garden are still preserved. 
For our interest this afternoon it is of importance to note that 
the first attempt to establish a commercial nursery in America 
was on Long Island. As early as 1725 William Prince began to 
propagate trees and shrubs for the purpose of ornamenting his 
own place at Flushing, Long Island, and about ten years later 
(1737) established his nursery. In 1793 it was given the name, 
Linnaean Botanic Garden, but continued to be essentially a 
commercial institution. The village of Flushing has become 
famous for its beautiful trees, supplied in large part from the 
early Prince nursery. To the influence of these nurseries is 
doubtless due, in part at least, the fact that advertisements of 
homes for sale at various places on Long Island, in 1750, stated 
that they had flower gardens attached, and in 1756 places were 
advertised having “‘greenhouses filled with tropical plants.’’ A 
pottery at Whitestone, Long Island, advertised ‘‘flower pots’’ 
for sale as early as 1751. 
The increase of private gardens such, for example, as Peter 
Stuyvesant’s “ Bouwerie,’’ in Manhattan, increased the demand 
for horticultural novelties, and the nursery business became 
increasingly attractive. 
“The New York Botanic Garden in Broadway near the House 
of Refuge,’ conducted by Thomas Hogg in 1822, at the corner of 
Broadway and 23d St., and moved in 1840 to 79th Street and 
East River, was possibly the second commercial nursery in New 
York State; but the second one on Long Island, and the first 
institution in Brooklyn to be called a ‘‘ Botanic Garden,’’ was the 
nursery of André-Joseph Ghislain Parmentier, who came to 
America from Belgium in 1824. 
In the interest of correct understanding, special attention is 
called to the fact that while Prince and Hogg and Parmentier 
called their institutions ‘‘ Botanic Gardens’’ they were not such 
in the modern sense of the word, but were primarily and essen- 
