HORTICULTURE 



HORTICULTURE 



1517 



at the surface of the ground, and that it had little 

 similarity to the method now in vogue. 



One of the new trees something over one hundred 

 years ago was the Lombardy poplar. John Kenrick 

 had two acres devoted to it in 1797; and Deane writes, 

 in 1797. that "the Lombardy poplar begins to be planted 



I860. Dufour's picture of grape-training (1826). Patterned after the 

 South-European fashion of employing mulberry trees for supports. 



in this country. To what size they will arrive, and how 

 durable they will be in this country, time will discover." 

 He does not mention it in the first edition, 1790. The 

 tree is said to have been introduced into America by 

 William Hamilton, of Philadelphia, in 1784, although 

 Mr. Meehan wrote that he remembered trees over 

 sixty years ago that seemed to be a century old. 



Manning quotes a bill of sale of nursery stock in 

 1799, showing that the price of fruit trees 

 was 33 l /i cents each. Deane speaks of 

 raising apple trees as follows: "The way 

 to propagate them is by sowing the 

 pomace from cydermills, digging, or hoe- 

 ing it into the earth in autumn. The 

 young plants will be up in the following 

 spring; and the next autumn, they should 

 be transplanted from the seed-bed into 

 the nursery, in rows from 2 to 3 feet apart 

 and 1 foot in the rows, where the ground 

 has been fitted to receive them." Noth- 

 ing is said about grafting the trees in the 

 nursery. 



The first independent general nursery 

 in the New World, in the sense in which 

 we now understand the term, appears to 

 have been that established by W'illiam 

 Prince at Flushing, Long Island, and which 

 was continued under four generations of 

 the same family. The founder was William 

 Prince. The second Prince was also 

 William, the son, and author of the first 

 regular American treatise on horticulture, 

 1828. The third generation was William 

 Robert Prince. He was the author of "A 

 Treatise on the Vine" (1830), "ThePomo- 

 logical Manual" (1831), and "Manual of 

 Roses" (1846). In the first two he was 

 aided by his father, the second William. 

 This William Robert Prince is the one 

 who first distinguished the types of the 

 prairie strawberry into the two species, 

 Fragaria illinoensis and F. iowensis. From 



a large catalogue of William Prince, second, published 

 in 1825 and which contains, amongst other things, 

 lists of 116 kinds of apples, 108 of pears, 54 of cherries, 

 50 of plums, 16 of apricots, 74 of peaches and 255 of 

 geraniums the following account is taken of the 

 founding of this interesting establishment: "The Lin- 

 nsean Garden was commenced about the 

 middle of the last century by William 

 Prince, the father of the present proprietor, 

 at a time when there were few or no estab- 

 lishments of the kind in this country. It 

 originated from his rearing a few trees to 

 ornament his own grounds; but finding, 

 after the first efforts had been attended 

 with success, that he could devote a por- 

 tion of his lands more lucratively to their 

 cultivation for sale than to other pur- 

 poses, he commenced their culture more 

 extensively, and shortly after published a 

 catalogue, which, at that early period, 

 contained several hundred species and 

 varieties, and hence arose the first exten- 

 sive fruit collection in America." The 

 elder Prince died in 1802, "at an advanced 

 age." In October, 1790, a broadside was 

 issued in New York, printed by Hugh 

 Gaine, giving a list of a large collection of 

 fruit trees and shrubs for sale by William 

 Prince at Flushing Landing, on Long 

 Island. The twenty-second edition of this 

 broadside appeared in 1823. In Thomas 

 "History of Printing," second edition, 

 reference is made to an edition printed in 

 1771. 



Amongst the nurseries which were prominent from 

 1820 to 1830 were Bloodgood's, Floy's, Wilson's, Par- 

 mentier's, and Hogg's, near New York; Buel and Wil- 

 son's at Albany; Sinclair and Moore's, at Baltimore. 

 David Thomas, a man of great character, and pos- 

 sessed of scientific attainments, was an early horti- 

 culturist of central or western New York. His collec- 

 tion of fruits at Aurora on Cayuga Lake, was begun 



1861. The original picture of the Hovey strawberry. "Magazine of Horticulture,' 

 August, 1840. (Original size) 



