EARLY HORTICULTURAL JOURNALISM IN 
THE UNITED STATES 
By JAMES GRIMSHAW SCOTT 
Germantown, Pennsylvania 
“ Time consecrates and what is gray with age becomes Religion.” 
On the authority of our most accurate Germantown historian, 
Edwin C. Jellett, we have it that the pioneer horticultural journal 
was the Florist and Horticultural Journal founded in Philadelphia 
in 1852 by R. Robinson Scott. 
In presenting to you the facts of the beginning of horticultural 
journalism in these United States, I have taken the stated “text” 
from the pages of the Philadelphia Florist and Horticultural 
Journal, the first issue of which came from the press in April, 
1852, and the publication of which was suspended in 1855, having 
run through part of that year. 
Explaining the suspension of publication, the editor printed 
the following: ‘‘The only apology we have to make for our sus- 
pension, to those of our subscribers who paid us promptly their 
subscriptions, is, that a greater number have not paid and some, 
perhaps many, do not intend to pay.” 
This shows that the Journal was an indigenous one—not an 
exotic, as the circulation editor of a journal of any kind to-day will 
advise you that this condition of the finances is normal throughout 
the country. We must not censure the delinquents for the state 
of affairs entirely, for the publication is often thrust upon them by 
the importunities of the publishers and the charm of the journal 
so grips the reader that he is loth to cancel his subscription even 
when he has no funds with which to pay for it. 
This period, say from 1850 to 1860, seems to have been the 
golden age of horticulture in the United States and the storm area 
extended from Massachusetts to Maryland, where many earnest 
workers were engaged in planting the wilderness and encouraging 
the remainder of the country to cultivate the soil. 
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