200 



THE ILLINOIS FAEMEK. 



July 



of the Doctor. All this time bis pen was busy for 

 the public good, and we think he was the first man 

 to rouse the public to the idea of paving the streets 

 of New Orleans, and building warehouses. These 

 improvements he urged were absolutely necessary 

 to the business and rapidly growing commerce of 

 the city, and to keep the western trade as well as 

 iu a sanitarypoint of view. 



Soon after, the Doctor started the Louisiana 

 Recorder, a literary and scientific paper. The Dr. 

 remained at Xew Orleans as teacher and editor un- 

 til the spring of 183C, having spent a dozen years 

 in the South. Once during this time he returned 

 to Buffalo, in 1834, and passed through this State 

 from north to south, and was so favorably struck 

 with its beauties and opening prospects that the 

 result was his return with his family two years 

 later. 



Such, in brief, is the history of the Doctor up 

 to the time when he made the west his home. 



Naturally of a feeble constitution, yet few men 

 of his years has performed so much real labor as 

 he has accomplished. 



From that time the Doctor has made himself 

 known by his beautiful home at " The Grove ;" by 

 his public writings, but most of all by his genial 

 nature and his immense private correspondence. 

 Could this correspondence be gathered up and pro- 

 perly arranged, it would comprise a vast amount 

 of valuable instruction in floriculture and through- 

 out the whole range of rural pursuits. The Doc- 

 tor was a practical man. He could not, like the 

 Duke of Devonshire, create and build what 

 his judgment advised, for be it reccollected, 

 he had nothing but his own hands to build with, 

 yet he has succeeded to no small extent. Had he 

 been born with means commensurate with his 

 taste, he might have built up an establishment that 

 would have been now the pride of the State, but 

 he had no such favorable advantages, and has had 

 to grow up with the west, to feel and realize all 

 the drawbacks to a pioneer settlement, and while 

 educating the people to a higher taste in the adorn- 

 ment of home, has set an example worthy of imi- 

 tation, and his home at "The Grove" is now 

 one of the most beautiful spots in the State, aboun- 

 ding with rich fruits, flowers, shrubs and trees, 

 both native and foreign. 



To the noble " Old Doctor " is due the present 

 plan of our department, and at the head of which 

 he should have been placed, but at the time of its 

 creation our State was" represented by politicians 

 who had neither time nor taste to do justice either 

 to their own State or to the name to whom the 

 fijst inception of the plan was due. To him who 

 had spent years in devising and bringing it into 



working shape. The reason for this neglect is 

 plain to us, — they all knew that the Doctor could 

 not be made a tool of, and that the institution, if 

 under his control, would be one for the people, in- 

 stead of a foot ball for political harlequins, hence 

 some other person had to be selected who was at 

 least supposed to be more pliant, but we trust they 

 have mistaken their man, and that the noble insti- 

 tution over which the Doctor wasted his last ener- 

 gies will be kept out of the hands of these harpies 

 and yet be of benefit to the great mass of the peo- 

 ple. 



Ih the l*orth\^stern Fruit Growers' Association, 

 the Doctor took an active part from its formation 

 in 1851 at Princeton, and was president for sever- 

 al years, in fact until he longer refused to hold the 

 position. His ill health admonished him from 

 time to time to forego the pleasure of public 

 meetings, and of late years he has not been able 

 to take an active part in them. In all this time 

 his pen has not been idle either for the public or in 

 private correspondence. Had we more space, we 

 would like to say more and to point out some of 

 the good things that he has done the tree and flow- 

 er planting public, and we trust that we may do 

 this at some other time. The Doctor has always 

 been one of the most unselfish men, of strict in- 

 tegrity he has always believed others to be so, but 

 has too often found it otherwise. 



The New York nurseries found it convenient to 

 vomit their refuse stock into the western prairies 

 with a persistence worthy of a better cause. The 

 unsuspecting good nature of the Doctor of course 

 came in for a large share, and his grounds were 

 soon gorged with all the evils that ponderous 

 plant boxes could hold. To sort out the evil fr«m 

 the good, the true from the false, has been his 

 study, and well has he performed his part in the 

 arduous task to clear the Augean stables of all 

 this trash. 



With a soil and climate differing in several re- 

 spects from all other parts of the New World, we 

 have had to feel our way and to make out a new 

 and hitherto untrodden path. In this new field 

 the Doctor has been a successful worker, and if he 

 did not grasp all the great truths at once, he al- 

 lowed no obstacle to stand in the way, but kept on 

 an ardent seeker in the field of practical knowl- 

 edge. Slow, yet sure, he climbed the steep ascent 

 that leads up the hill of rural knowledge, and if 

 he did not attain the summit, he has left a broad 

 pathway plainly marked in which all may travel. 

 His steps are all plain, none of them lie hid be- 

 neath the drapery of his idols or covered by the 

 debris of their fallen leaves, all, all is plain to 

 the point of his last steps, and the flowers shall 



