lOS [Assembly 



At the commencement of the present century, it was contemplated 

 fo build a new City Hall on the Commons before described, which 

 was considered by many old residents as being too distant from the 

 centre of business, the principal portion of the inhabitants then re- 

 siding below Walker-street. 



In attempting to furnish a brief detail of the progress of horticul- 

 ture, from the period when the " burghers good and true" of New- 

 Amsterdam displayed their skill and taste in the cultivation of that 

 pleasant and fertile little spot, then known as "Garden-Street," or 

 *'Garden-Alley" — a spot wdiere now assemble " money-changers" 

 and speculating merchants — I have unavoidably been compelled to 

 digress from my accustomed path; this, however, has been caused by 

 the daily innovations made by " bricks and mortar." Many of our 

 aged citizens hold it in remembrance, that farms, gardens and or- 

 chards were cultivated by them in the lower part of the city, and 

 that the estates of Rutger, Willet, Bayard, Delancy, Rivington, 

 Minthorn, Stuyvesant, and other property east of Bowery, together 

 with all the tillable land W'est of Broadway, were occupied by gar- 

 deners and nurserymen, with the exception of Potters' Field, and that 

 required for public burying grounds. Who would now imagine that 

 Cherry-street, running from Pearl-street upward, was once a bloom- 

 ing orchard, where many a smiling damsel picked her cherries, and 

 that in Orchard-street stood goodly apple-trees, where truant urchins 

 stole forbidden fruit? 



About fifty years since, a nursery was established near Rivington, 

 east of Sheriff-street, which street derived its name from Mr. Sher- 

 iff, the proprietor. Mr. Michael Floy, now living, succeeded Mr. S. 

 in this nursery. He afterward occupied land in Greenwich-lane, and 

 in 1807 removed from thence toward the North River, his nursery 

 being situated between King and Barrow-street, extending across 

 Hudson-street, that beautiful and spacious thoroughfare, to Green- 

 wich-street. This nursery being required for building lots, he was 

 induced in 1820, to start a nursery on the Brevoort estate, immedi- 

 ately north of the Sailor's Snug Harbor, which he carried on until 

 the year 1827, since which time he purchased fourteen acres of land 

 in Harlem, where he at present resides. W^e thus see that the march 

 of improvement has driven the nurserymen and market-gardeners far 

 from the fields. of their early exertions, and that where "once a gar- 

 den smiled," now stand the mansions of adventurous merchants and 

 successful tradesmen. 



Mr. Grant Thorburn, the celebrated seedsman of this city, informs 



