26 Old Time Gardens 



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as a tiresome weed, spreading and holding the 

 ground. Some homesick missionary or his more 

 homesick wife bore it there ; and her love of the 

 home plant impressed even the savage native. We 

 all know the story of the Scotch settlers who car- 

 ried their beloved Thistles to Tasmania " to make 

 it seem like home," and how they lived to regret 

 it. Vancouver's Island is completely overrun with 

 Broom and wild Roses from England. 



The first commercial nursery in America, in the 

 sense of the term as we now employ it, was estab- 

 lished about 1730 by Robert Prince, in Flushing, 

 Long Island, a community chiefly of French Hu- 

 guenot settlers, who brought to the new world many 

 French fruits by seed and cuttings, and also a love of 

 horticulture. For over a century and a quarter these 

 Prince Nurseries were the leading ones in Amer- 

 ica. The sale of fruit trees was increased in 1774 

 (as we learn from advertisements in the New York 

 Mercury of that year), by the sale of "Carolina 

 Magnolia flower trees, the most beautiful trees that 

 grow in America, and 50 large Catalpa flower trees ; 

 they are nine feet high to the under part of the top 

 and thick as one's leg," also other flowering trees 

 and shrubs. 



The fine house built on the nursery grounds by 

 William Prince suffered little during the Revolu- 

 tion. It was occupied by Washington and after- 

 wards house and nursery were preserved from 

 depredations by a guard placed by General Howe 

 when the British took possession of Flushing. Of 

 course, domestic nursery business waned in time of 



