464 



HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 



first he gave full play to his passion fnr 

 rural pursuits, laboring industriously in 

 field and garden and hotbed, introduc- 

 ing innovations in processes of cultiva- 

 tion, and engaging in all manner of ex- 

 periments which had their fruit in the 

 creation of new types of vegetable life 

 and development and improvement of 

 many which were old. In the year of his 

 coming to the county (1872) he took 

 out letters patent on the earliest incu- 

 bator, the invention of himself and Mr. 

 Fred Meyer. The two manufactured 

 their device and placed it on exhibition 

 at agricultural exhibitions at Philadel- 

 phia and Washington, at the last named 

 in 1880, .when it was awarded the gold 

 medal. It was, however, too bulky and 

 costly for general use, and did not come 

 into vogue, but did prove the foundation 

 of all that has since been accomplished 

 in the line of extra-natural incubation. 

 In 1883 and the following year Dr. Mor- 

 witz grew upon his Cold Spring Farm, 

 at the expense of infinite patience, tube- 

 rose bulbs in the open air. These found 

 a market in London, England, but the 

 more salubrious climate of Algiers made 

 the product of that region a competitor 

 not to be overcome. In the same year 

 Dr. Morwitz grew winter vetches and 

 barley mixture for use as green fodder 

 for domestic animals. This was changed 

 in the following spring (1885) to oats- 

 vetches, and in 1886 to oats-peas mixture, 

 which has since that time been grown 

 extensively and profitably in the neigh- 

 borhood of the Morwitz estate. In the 

 fall of 1885 Dr. Morwitz built the first 

 silo in the group of townships surround- 

 ing that of Bristol, and his' success em- 

 boldened many of the neighboring farm- 

 ers to adopt the apparatus and> to con- 

 tinue its use as one of their most val- 

 uable adjuncts. In .the same year Dr. 

 Morwitz imported a quantity of crimson 

 clover. He made a number of costly 

 failures before he secured a proper 

 method of planting and cultivating, but 

 finally succeeded, and this culture has 

 became a standing feature of the most 

 profitable and best conducted farms, 

 not only in Pennsylvania, but through- 

 out the country, wherever the plant is 

 at all growable. The low wet meadow 

 patches of the farm were planted with 

 ozier willows, which came to a satis- 

 factory growth, the product being profit- 

 able for a number of years, when the 

 competition of European willow wares 

 necessitated the abandonment of this 

 industry. Many tests were made by 

 Dr. Morwitz which resulted negatively. 

 Thus, he endeavored to introduce the 

 German plants, lupine, scradella and the 

 much vaunted sachaline, but soil _ or cli- 

 matic conditions were uncongenial, and 

 his experiments failed. He succeeded, 

 however, in his prosecution of the Ger- 

 man method of getting catch crops on 

 wheat and rye stubble, and practiced the 



process mntil the system found general 

 adoption in that part of Pennsylvania, 

 where it has been carried to unsurpassa- 

 ble perfection. These crops were prin- 

 cipally late cabbages, especially the Lan- 

 dreth, late fiat Dutch and Boomsdale, 

 rutabagas, spinach and kale. Dr. Mor- 

 witz was also greatly interested in arti- 

 ficial • pisciculture, and heartily second- 

 ed the efi'orts of the general and state 

 governments in that direction. As early 

 as 1878 he constructed a small plant for 

 trout hatching on the Cold Spring Farm, 

 and succeeded in breeding quite a quan- 

 tity of fine fish, but the often recur- 

 rent floods of the Delaware river oblig- 

 ed him to abandon the experiment. Dr. 

 Morwitz continued in his varied and 

 busy labors until his death, which occur- 

 red in 1893. He found a worthy succes- 

 sor in his son. Dr. Joseph Morwitz, who 

 has encouraged those- about him to per- 

 sist in various lines of agricultural in- 

 dustry in which his sire was a pioneer. 

 He was himself instrumental (in 1903) 

 in the formation of the Cooperative Can- 

 ning Factory at Tullytown, which, it is 

 hoped and expected, will greatly increase 

 the value to farmers of the principal 

 truck crops of the district — tomatoes, 

 sugar corn, pumpkins, etc. 



The Cold Spring Farm is famous for 

 the "Queen of Edgely" rose, a pink 

 rose which has been awarded the gold 

 and silver medals at the greatest ex- 

 hibitions which have been held since 

 that time. This was produced by Mr. 

 David Fuerstenberg, who in 1897 rented 

 the hothouses first installed by the elder 

 Dr. Morwitz as early as 1881, and which 

 had been in constant growth and devel- 

 opment. Mr. Fuerstenberg had directed 

 the work in the hothouses from the 

 first, and he has made it one of the best 

 and most extensive plants for rose cul- 

 ture in the United States. He discov- 

 ered a sprout from the American Beauty 

 rose in the hothouse, and propogated 

 from it, thus producing the now noted 

 "Queen of Edgely." 



CHARLES R. NIGHTINGALE, of 

 Doylestown, justice of the peace, was 

 born in Doylestown township, Bucks 

 county, December 5, 1856, son of Dr. 

 Henry B. and Albina C. (Price) Night- 

 ingale. 



Rev. Samuel Nightingale, grandfather 

 of the subject of this sketch, was born 

 in Columbus, Burlington county, New 

 Jersey, December 11, 1792, being a son 

 of Isaac and Ann Nightingale. Early in 

 life he removed to Philadelphia, where 

 he was engaged in the wholesale hard- 

 ware business, and removed to Balti- 

 more, Maryland, about 1818, where he 

 followed the same line of business for 

 some years. He was a man of more 

 than ordinary mental caliber, and of 



I 



