HORTICULTURISTS 



HORTICULTURISTS 



1601 



1904. Luther Tucker. 



ful Plants." He wrote also the entire botany of Apple- 

 ton's "New American Encyclopedia." An important 

 part of his contributions to horticultural literature con- 

 sisted in editing, revising and bringing out the horti- 

 cultural and agricultural books of the Orange Judd 

 Company. After the death of Dr. Torrey, he was 

 elected president of the Torrey Botanical Club. He 

 was also president of the New Jersey Horticultural 

 Society; vice-president of the American Pomological 

 Society for New Jersey; and honorary member of many 

 scientific societies throughout the world. 



F. M. HEXAMER. 



Tucker, Luther, (Fig. 1904), editor, was born at Bran- 

 don, Vermont, May 7, 1802, and died January 26, 1873. 

 He was the founder of "The Horticulturist" and the 



proprietor of that valu- 

 able and unique maga- 

 zine during the period 

 of its greatest glory 

 from July, 1846, until 

 the autumn of 1852. 

 To A. J. Downing, how- 

 ever, belongs the credit 

 for the distinguished 

 interest and value of 

 the magazine, as he 

 conducted it according 

 to his own ideas, with 

 which the proprietor 

 never interfered, the 

 latter having indeed 

 enough to do in putting 

 it before the public with 

 enterprise and vigor. It 

 was issued simultane- 

 ously in Albany, Bos- 

 ton, New York and 

 Philadelphia, with 

 twenty- two special 

 agencies at other points, including what was then the dis- 

 tant western town of Cleveland, Ohio, as well as Hamil- 

 ton and Cobourg in "Canada West." Luther Tucker 

 also founded, at Rochester, New York, October 27, 

 1826, the first daily paper published west of New York, 

 "The Advertiser," which is still, under a slightly 

 extended name, an influential journal; also at Roches- 

 ter, January 1, 1831, "The Genesee Farmer," a weekly, 

 the first agricultural periodical in the world written 

 directly from the standpoint of practical experience. 

 It has undergone some changes in name, as its scope 

 extended far beyond the Genesee Valley, being now 

 called "The Country Gentleman." It was published 

 in Albany by the founder and his sons, from January, 

 1840, until July, 1911, when it was sold to the Curtis 

 Publishing Company of Philadelphia. This is one of 

 the ten American agricultural periodicals that were 

 started before 1850 and outlived the nineteenth century, 

 the others being these: "Maine (Kennebec) Farmer," 

 1839; "American (Boston) Cultivator," 1839; "South- 

 ern Planter," 1840; "Massachusetts Plowman," 1841; 

 "Prairie Farmer," 1841; "American Agriculturist," 

 1842; "Southern Cultivator," 1843; "Indiana Farmer," 

 1845; "Rural World," 1848; "Ohio Farmer," 1848. 

 It was natural that Luther Tucker should be interested 

 in the New York State Agricultural Society, which he 

 found at a low ebb on his coming to Albany, and of 

 which, only a year later, he was the chief reorganizer, 

 getting on foot the long series of annual fairs begin- 

 ning in 1841 and still continued. He served the Society 

 without any compensation or even reimbursement 

 for his own expenses, for eleven years. 



GILBERT M. TUCKER. 



Vaux, Calvert (1824-1895), an American landscape 

 gardener, was born in London. Together with Frederick 

 Law Olmsted he planned Central Park, New York, the 



102 



prototype of large, accessible, nature-like city parks. 

 The following account of his life-work is taken with 

 slight changes from an obituary notice by Wm. A. 

 Stiles in "Garden and Forest" 8:480. He had achieved 

 success in architecture before the age of twenty-four, 

 when he came to America as business associate of 

 Andrew Jackson Downing. At the time of Downing's 

 untimely death in 1854 the two men were designing and 

 constructing the grounds about the Capitol and Smith- 

 sonian Institution, the most important work of the 

 kind that had yet been attempted in America. Mean- 

 while, the gathering sentiment in favor of spacious 

 and accessible city parks which had found expression in 

 eloquent letters of Downing, at last secured, through 

 legislative action, the purchase for a public pleasure- 

 ground of the rectangular piece of ground now known as 

 Central Park, New York. In 1858 the city authorities 

 selected, out of thirty-three designs offered in competi- 

 tion for the new park, the one signed "Greensward," 

 which was the joint work of Frederick Law Olmsted and 

 Calvert Vaux, and Central Park as we know it today is 

 the realization of this design in its essential features. 

 It may be added that this "Greensward" plan, together 

 with other reports on Central Park, on Morningside 

 and Riverside Parks, in New York, on parks in Brook- 

 lyn, Albany, Chicago, San Francisco and other cities, 

 both in this country and the Dominion of Canada, by 

 the same authors, contain a consistent body of doctrine 

 relating to public pleasure-grounds which is unique and 

 invaluable. Calvert Vaux was a member of many 

 important commissions, and he acted as landscape gar- 

 dener for the Niagara Falls Reservation, but for more 

 than thirty years his best work and thought were stead- 

 ily given to the parks of New York City. He had the 

 genuine creative faculty which gave the stamp of origi- 

 nality to all his work, and a severity of taste which pre- 

 served it from anything like eccentricity or extrava- 

 gance. As a city official he was a model of intelligent 

 zeal and sturdy integrity. Several times he resigned 

 his lucrative position rather than see his art degraded, 

 but he was always quickly reinstated by a demand of 

 the people. See Olmsted, p. 1589; also Landscape Gar- 

 dening, Vol. IV. WILHELM MILLER. 



Vick, James (Fig. 1905), seedsman and editor, was 

 born at Portsmouth, England, November 23, 1818, 

 and died at Rochester, New York, May 16, 1882. He 

 came to America at the age of twelve, learned the print- 

 er's trade, and in 1850 

 became editor of the 

 "Genesee Farmer," 

 then published at 

 Rochester by Luther 

 Tucker and subse- 

 quently absorbed by 

 "The Cultivator." In 

 1853 he purchased 

 Downing's magazine, 

 "The Horticulturist," 

 and published it for a 

 time, the editor being 

 Patrick Barry. In 1860 

 Vick entered the seed 

 business and his trade 

 soon grew to large pro- 

 portions. For about 

 twenty years his name 

 was a household word, 

 being associated especi- 

 ally with flowers. In 

 1878 he founded 

 "Vick's Magazine." 

 Vick's personality was thoroughly amiable, and his 

 letters in "Vick's Magazine" to children and to garden- 

 lovers everywhere show the great hold he had on the 

 hearts of the people. WILHELM MILLER. 



1905. James Vick. 



