THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



113 



bis house and found him and his wife 

 at breakfast. His wife told me after- 

 wards that she felt greatly embarrassed, 

 when I entered, because (supposing I 

 had had no breakfast) they had neither 

 tea nor coffee on the table, having 

 adopted the simple beverage of cold 

 water. She was, however, entirely re- 

 lieved when I informed her that for 

 many years I had drunk nothing else. 

 I mention this incident to show their 

 simple manner and mode of living, al- 

 though owning and living in one of the 

 finest residences on the banks of the 

 Hudson. Charles Downing 



GAVE SPECIAL ATTENTION TO FRUITS, 



and to securing accui-ately the many 

 vai'ieties in cultivation, more so than 

 his brother, and to him mainly was to 

 be attributed the reliability of every- 

 thing they raised. I procured of him 

 on one occasion a number of valuable 

 ai'ticles and asked him for his bill. " I 

 have no bill," he rej)lied, " and if that 

 is not satisfactory, you may do as mucli 

 for somebody else when opj)ortunity 

 offers." The same pleasant and gener- 

 ous course was often pursued by him. 

 He made it a point to procure every 

 variety of fruit he could hear of tliat 

 was deemed worthy of cultivation ; and 

 his correspondence was extensive to all 

 parts of the Union for grapes and speci- 

 mens of fruits. Although he had pro- 

 cured these he seemed glad to dissem- 

 inate at any time to all who desired. 

 He retired from the nursery business 

 some tliirty years ago, and then gave 

 his attention more exclusively to pom- 

 ology. 



Charles Downing, giving up his 

 business in the winter of 1857 and 8, 

 and for the next ten years used his 

 place as an experimental garden, where 

 he tested and fruited 



MANY THOUSANDS OF VARIETIES 



in theii' greatest possible range. He 

 being very quiet and reticent in his 



daily habits, his life was an unobstruc- 

 tive and uneventfiil one, he scarcely 

 ever making himself public through 

 the papers, and not very frequently 

 attending the horticultural or other 

 meetings, and when he did so had sel- 

 dom much to say. 



WORK ! HARD, PESISTENT WORK ! 



seemed to be his motto, and in that he 

 was eminently successful. After his ac- 

 tive outside activity he spent very much 

 of his later years of life in rewriting, 

 revising and adding to the popular 

 national work of his younger, brilliant 

 but deceased brother. The 



FRUITS AND FRUIT TREES OF AMERICA 



is now the only monument of the bril- 

 liant A. J. D., but it also owes much 

 to the careful work and deeper experi- 

 ence of the elder Charles. It is a pil- 

 lar of renown, and will stand a monu- 

 mental remembrance of the Downings. 

 Charles several times added to it much 

 valuable new matter, being all the re- 

 sult of his own deep observation and 

 extensive experiments, and finally had 

 the great satisfaction of living to see 

 his great work carried successfully 

 through the press, 



OCTOBER 22nd, 1882. 

 Mr. Downing suflered severely from 

 the injuries caused by an accident in 

 the city of New York, which laid him 

 up for many weeks in helplessness. 

 During .his time many very valuable 

 notices of worth and respect were 

 issued from the various sections of the 

 press, all of which were very pleasing 

 to the many friends of the injured gen- 

 tleman. To quote again from a lady 

 friend, " Not a garden in the land or a 

 home worthy of the name that is not 

 the better for his steadfast watchful 

 devotion to the progress of our horticul- 

 ture." Mr. Downing kept at his work 

 of testing fi-uits and making notes up to 

 within a few weeks of his death. He 

 died January 1 8th, 1885, in his 83rd 



