Necrology of i8go. 281 



grounds or superintending others. Although careful, he was 

 liberal, and many benefitted by his kindness. He leaves a 

 widow, two sons and two daughters. — American Garden, Feb. 

 1890, 113. 



The following sketch of Peter Henderson is adapted from 

 a eulogy read before the New York Florists' Club by A. D. 

 Cowan : 



'Born of respectable and industrious parents in the little village of 

 Pathhead, in Midlothian, Scotland, where he received the first rudiments of 

 his education, we find young Henderson at the age of 14 on his way to 

 Edinburgh to fill his first situation, which he held for the next two years. 

 One of the great ambitions of a youth on leaving a provincial school is to 

 obtain a situation in the Scotch capital, and this is given as an explanation 

 of his having started out in life in the employment of an inn-keeper, this 

 being the only position available at the time. In after life he never regret- 

 ted this early experience, which was to some extent instrumental in shaping 

 his future destiny, and he was always proud of having left the business as 

 uncontaminated as when he entered it. Throughout his entire life he was 

 an earnest and devoted friend of the temperance cause, and we know that 

 many workingmen by taking his advice own their own homesteads to-day. 

 His subsequent four years' apprenticeship, served in the gardens of Melville 

 Castle, one of the most noted country seats in Scotland, made him a profi- 

 cient gardener, and having by this time acquired a botanical and mathe- 

 matical education, he had thus become possessed of the groundwork of his 

 career. It was during this period that the attention of botanists was drawn 

 to the young student by his successful competition for the medal offered by 

 the Edinburgh Royal Botanical Society for the best herbarium of native 

 and exotic plants. At the age of 20 he landed on these shores, and it is not 

 strange that an honestly earned reputation preceded him. His services 

 were immediately sought after, and for the next five years he was employed 

 by two of our leading nurserymen, and also in laying out the grounds, 

 planning and supervising the erection of greenhouses for a prominent resi- 

 dent of Pittsburgh. 



"We have now reached the period when the young gardener's reputation 

 for fidelity, industry, and ability was attracting wide attention ; but he 

 wisely concluded at this time to change his occupation to the commercial 

 production of vegetables and flowers, and with the capital which he had 

 accumulated ($500), he bought the stock and appliances of a florist and 

 market gardener's business in the vicinity of Jersey City. This was Peter 

 Henderson's first venture, his establishment consisting of three small green- 

 houses, six cold-frames, and twelve acres for raising vegetables for market. 

 No additions were made to his plant until 1854, when he built another 

 greenhouse ; and he afterwards kept adding to his area of glass until, in 

 1865, it had reached a total of 13 houses. * * * * in 1866 Gardenins^ 

 for Profit appeared, and perhaps to that work more than to any other cause 

 may be ascribed the rapid advance of American vegetable gardening. 

 Peter Henderson at this time was engaged in an occupation which required 

 16 hours of attention a day, most of the work involving manual labor, but 



