KENRICK'S NURSERY. 33 



the various professions ; such as John Lowell, who was its presi- 

 dent from 1796 to 1804 ; his son, of the same name, who was presi- 

 dent from 1823 to 1827, and was styled by Gen. Dearborn " the 

 Columella of the Northern States ; " Thomas L. Winthrop ; Fisher 

 Ames ; Timothy Pickering, previously secretary of the Philadelphia 

 Society for Promoting Agriculture ; George Cabot ; Theodore 

 Lyman ; S. Parker, D.D. ; John Welles; Caleb Strong, who was 

 president from 1802 to 1805 ; John Adams, president from 1805 to 

 1812 ; James Bowdoin ; Elbridge Gerry ; Joseph B. Varnum ; and 

 John Hancock. The Massachusetts Agricultural Repository, a 

 periodical devoted to agri culture, and the first of the kind in the 

 country, was commenced by this society in 1793. John Lowell, 

 and other persons of equal eminence, and possessing a similar love 

 for the cultivation of the soil, were constant or occasional con- 

 tributors. 1 Even in the earlier years of this publi cation a portion 

 of the articles were upon horticulture, though it was not until 1821 

 that a regular and urgent notice was taken in its pages of that 

 branch of agriculture. 2 Among the leading writers on horticul- 

 ture in the Repositor3 T were John Lowell, Timothy Pickering, 

 John Welles, and John Prince. After the establishment of the 

 New England Farmer, the publication of the Repository was dis- 

 continued. 



In 1790 John Kenrick commenced his horticultural improve- 

 ments at Newton by planting a quantity of peach stones. He 

 was acquainted with the process of grafting ; but the method of 

 propagating by inoculation was unknown to him, and the trees for 

 his orchard were planted in their natural state. About four years 

 later, having learned to bud, he began a commercial nursery, 

 adding apples, cherries, and other fruit trees to his stock. About 

 1797 he commenced a nursery of ornamental trees, two acres being 

 appropriated to the Lombardy poplar, the most salable tree at 

 that time in this part of the country. Extending his assortment, 

 as opportunity offered, by collecting all that could be procured 

 from the gardens in the neighborhood of Boston, his nurseries 

 finally became the most extensive, probably, of any in New Eng- 

 land. In 1823 Mr. Kenrick associated with him his elder son, 

 William, as we find from an advertisement in the New England 

 Farmer of October 4 of that year. They offered a general assort- 



1 Trans, of the Mass. Society for Promoting Agriculture, New Series, Vol. I. 

 * Trans, of the Mass. Hort. Soc., 1842, p. 25. 



