34 PETER HENDERSON. 



upon millions of stocks, and yet to-day they are as true to 

 their individuality as the Concord grape or Wilson straw- 

 berry, that are perpetuated by cuttings or runners, and 

 not one of them is in any way changed from what it was 

 when it first appeared, unless by the temporary accidents 

 of soil or climate." This' most interesting and valuable 

 essay clearly shows the strong scientific instinct that 

 Peter Henderson possessed. Its conclusion, with which 

 we finish this record of his contributions to horticultural 

 literature shows a comprehensiveness and loftiness of 

 thought both tersely and grandly expressed. " I believe 

 that the smallest or the greatest of God's creations has 

 a separate and distinct individuality ; that they can- 

 not be blended except by generation, and that the prod- 

 uct of generation, whether in the lowest microscopic 

 germ, or in the highest type, man, has an individuality 

 distinct and separate that it cannot attach to another." 



His Home and Married Life. 



Peter Henderson lived nearly all his life in Jersey City, 

 where as citizen, friend and neighbor, no man stood 

 higher in the estimation of the community in which for 

 over forty years he made his home. There it was that 

 he established his roof -tree, after his marriage in New 

 York City, in 185 1, to Miss Emily Gibbons, a native of 

 Bath, England. She was the daughter of Mr. Thomas 

 Gibbons, and the mother of his three children, Alfred, 

 Isobel (now Mrs. Robert M. Floyd) and Charles. 



Of her, the companion of his early manhood, the share 

 she bore in bye-gone years, in the daily drama of thrift, 

 economy and self-denial, even filial devotion cannot ade- 

 quately record. To their seventeen years of married 

 life she brought every sweet and noble attribute to be 

 found in wife and mother. The worldly honors her hus- 

 band won she scarcely more than saw, for she died in 

 1868, at the early age of thirty-four years. The turf that 

 for these many years has crowned her grave, is not 

 greener than is her memory to-day in the hearts of those 

 who knew and loved her. All three of her children are 



