1598 



HORTICULTURISTS 



HORTICULTURISTS 



law by constitutional weakness and defective eyesight, 

 he found expression in diversified activities. He was in 

 turn a teacher, assistant superintendent of public 

 schools, surveyor on the Pacific coast, writer of political 

 articles, secretary of the Senate of New Jersey, actuary 

 of a life insurance company, and gauger in the New 

 York custom house. During a long period of illness and 

 almost total blindness he acquired systematic knowl- 

 edge of plant-life from readings by his sisters, and 

 this gave impulse toward subsequent study on 

 broader lines. He brought together many rare 

 and choice species of plants, and made interesting 

 experiments on the farm. His articles in the daily 

 press of New York on the various interests of country 

 life attracted wide attention, and led to his appointment 

 as an editorial writer of the New York "Tribune," a 

 relation which continued throughout his lifetime. In 

 1883 he became agricultural editor of the Philadelphia 

 "Press." Keenly interested in introducing scientific 

 discoveries and improved methods into general practice, 

 he established relations with the foremost agriculturists 

 abroad and at home, and made his department a use- 

 ful and valuable exponent of the best knowledge of the 

 time. His masterly conduct of the page during the 

 next five years set a high standard for journalism in 

 this field, and established his reputation as a specialist 

 in agriculture and cognate subjects. On the founding of 

 "Garden and Forest" in 1888, William A. Stiles was 

 invited to be the managing editor. For nearly ten 

 years, to the close of his life, he devoted himself to 

 this journal through vigorous editorial writing and 

 management, and steadily maintained the high char- 

 acter of the most able and influential periodical in 

 American horticultural journalism. For many years he 

 rendered conspicuous service in working for the estab- 

 lishment of small parks easily accessible to the poor, 

 and for the wise conduct of the larger parks and 

 their preservation from invasion and despoilment. His 

 special ability and influence received public recog- 

 nition in 1895, when he was appointed a park commis- 

 sioner of New York city, a position in which he rendered 

 signal and valuable service until the time of his death. 



M. B. COULSTON. 



Strauch, Adolph (Fig. 1900), landscape-gardener, was 

 born in Prussia, August 30, 1822, and died at Cincinnati, 

 Ohio, April 25, 1883. He began the study of landscape 

 gardening at the age of sixteen, and perfected his knowl- 

 edge and taste by travel and by working in many 

 places, including Vienna, Schoenbrun, Luxemburg, Ber- 

 lin, Hamburg, The Hague, Amsterdam, Ghent and Paris, 

 spending several years at the latter place. In 1848 he 

 went to London where he found employment in the 



Royal Botanic Gar- 

 dens. In 1851 he came 

 to the United States, 

 landing at Galveston, 

 Texas. From there he 

 found his way to Cin- 

 cinnati, and made that 

 his home during the 

 rest of his life. Mr. 

 Strauch designed por- 

 tions of the parks and 

 many of the private 

 grounds in Cincinnati. 

 "Clifton" in that city, 

 owed its beauty to his 

 skill and good taste. 

 Mr. Strauch's chief 

 claim to distinction 

 however, was in orig- 

 inating the park-like 

 treatment of cemeter- 

 ies. He developed his 

 ideas in Spring Grove, 

 1900. Adolph Strauch. which became the most 



beautiful cemetery in the world. His skill as a land- 

 scape gardener was called into requisition in many 

 places, among which are included Buffalo, Cleveland, 

 Toledo, Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis, Nashville and 

 Hartford. Frederick Law Olmsted used to say that 

 when he needed inspiration he visited Spring Grove. 

 Perhaps no man in the United States since A. J. Down- 

 ing's time has done more for the correction and cul- 

 tivation of public taste in landscape gardening than 

 Adolph Strauch. He loved nature and tried to pre- 

 serve her natural beauty. He was especially success- 

 ful in grading land surfaces and securing beautiful 

 rolling lawns, the shaping of which was done almost 

 entirely by eye. He would say "When it pleases the 

 eye, it is right." He also said that the lawn at the 

 margin of a road should be tangent to the road's sur- 

 face. . He believed in the picturesque arrangement of 

 trees and shrubs, and was very careful to use species 

 that harmonize with each other. Q Q SIMONDS 



Stringfellow, Henry Martyn (Fig. 1901), was born at 

 Winchester, Virginia, January 31, 1839. and died on 

 June 17, 1912, at Fay- 

 etteville, Arkansas. He 

 was graduated from 

 William and Mary 

 College in 1858. Later 

 he attended the Vir- 

 ginia Theological Semi- 

 nary at Alexandria, 

 1858-61. Enlisting in 

 the Confederate Army 

 in 1861, he soon rose 

 from .the rank of pri- 

 vate to the rank of 

 captain in the Ordin- 

 ance Department. He 

 studied law for several 

 years. Much of his life 

 was spent in Texas, 

 where he was a pioneer 

 in discovering and de- 

 monstrating the rich 

 horticultural possibili- 

 ties of the Gulf coast. 

 He planted the first 

 pear orchard on the coast in 1882. In 1884, he planted 

 the first Satsuma orange trees in Texas trees which 

 he obtained from Japan. These plantings were at 

 Hitchcock. In this single instance, he rendered Amer- 

 ican horticulture a service of vast importance, since 

 during the past few years millions of Satsuma orange 

 plantings have been made all along the Gulf coast and 

 a vast industry has been created. By demonstrating the 

 value of drainage and by other methods, he opened up 

 the horticultural possibilities of the country lying be- 

 tween Houston and Galveston, previously regarded as 

 waste land. This is now the pear and strawberry country 

 of Texas. He was a frequent contributor to horticul- 

 tural publications and the press. Some of his articles 

 appeared in the press of some foreign countries. His 

 book "The New Horticulture" was written and pub- 

 lished at Galveston in 1896. Most notable of the new 

 practices which he advocated in this book was a severe 

 method of pruning young fruit trees, both tops and 

 roots, preparatory to transplanting. This practice, 

 which he called "close root-pruning," sometimes 

 called the "Stringfellow method," again "stub-pruning," 

 proved successful in sandy types of soil southward, and 

 was adopted by many planters, especially of large peach 

 orchards in the South. ERNEST WALKER. 



Strong, William Chamberlain, lawyer and pomol- 

 ogist, was born at Hardwick, Vermont, August 18, 1823, 

 and died in New York City, May 11, 1913. He was a 

 graduate of Dartmouth College and then entered the 

 Harvard Law School, for several years practising law. 



1901. Henry M. Stringfellow. 



