tially commercial nurseries. A botanic garden, as the term is 
now used, is a scientific and educational institution, with no 
commercial aspects whatever, and the nursery of André Par- 
mentier is only remotely comparable to our modern botanic 
gardens. 
The importance of these early nurseries lay in the fact that 
they were pioneers in the nursery business, and the ability and 
high ideals of their proprietors gave them an importance in the 
development of horticultural interest and taste that could never 
be conceded to many of our modern commercial nurseries. 
Parmentier is a famous name in the annals of European horti- 
culture. Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a Frenchman, and a 
relative of the man we are honoring this afternoon, rendered 
signal service to France during the famine of 1769 by intro- 
ducing the cultivation of the potato into that country. Now, 
the potato belongs to a family of plants (Solanaceae) that con- 
tains species known to be poisonous, and so it was necessary to 
overcome a deep-seated popular prejudice against the use of the 
potato as food. In orde: to overcome this prejudice Parmentier 
induced the emperor, Louis XVI, to wear a flower of the potato 
plant in his buttonhole, and also to eat some of the tubers. 
Shortly thereafter Parmentier gave a banquet in Paris which was 
attended by many of the nobility and other famous men, includ- 
ing our own Benjamin Franklin, and the renowned French 
chemist, Lavoisier. At this banquet no food was served except 
potatoes cooked in every way then known to French chefs. 
After this banquet the demand for potatoes increased to such 
an extent that people broke through the fence surrounding 
Parmentier’s potato patch and stole his crop. From this 
Parmentier concluded that popular prejudice against the new food 
had largely disappeared. The use of the potato contributed 
toward alleviating the suffering brought about by the famine, 
and the first popular name of the potato in France was parmen- 
twére—the name pomme-de-terre being introduced later. 
Louis Parmentier, a brother of André, was a famous grower of 
roses in France. Another and older brother, Joseph-Julien 
Ghislain Parmentier (1775-1852), was one of the chief promoters 
of horticulture in Belgium during the first quarter of the nine- 
teenth century. While still a young man he showed a passion 
