A MEMOIR. 45 



His Rank in Horticultural History. 



Mr. William R. Smith, for nearly thirty-five years super- 

 intendent of the Botanic Gardens at Washington, and 

 a man highly distinguished for his botanical research, 

 paid him the highest possible tribute in terming him " the 

 great horticultural missionary ; " and Mr. E. E. Smith, in 

 an address delivered before the California Horticultural 

 Society, in San Francisco, last February, not only dilated 

 on the great loss horticulture had sustained in his death, 

 but expressed the general feeling, that the extent of Peter 

 H-enderson's services would hold his memory in lasting 

 remembrance. Here are a few passages from Mr. Smith's 

 eulogy : " Peter Henderson is dead. There has come 

 to the Goddess Flora a grief, and the sad sweet tones of 

 her funeral chant, as they float o'er the great man's grave, 

 are echoed by the odors of millions of flowers. No one 

 will ever know the laurels that in memory have been 

 placed upon his grave by sorrowing human hearts. One 

 of nature's noblemen, he embowered our windows with 

 climbing vines, and adorned and made beautiful our door- 

 yards with bright flowers; he made green our lawns and 

 fruitful our gardens. He is dead, but the flowers with 

 which he has strewn the pathway of life will emblazon 

 forever his memory upon earth." 



Mr. A. D. Cowan paid a beautiful and appreciative 

 tribute to his memory in a paper read before the New 

 York Florists' Club, March lo, 1890. Among other 

 things in his eloquent address Mr. Cowan said: " No 

 man ever lived who carried on his researches under 

 greater difficulties, and no one ever exercised greater 

 perseverance to gain a full knowledge of the subject 

 which claimed his attention. No one but he handled 

 the pioneer's pen which brought the dark, selfish and 

 ignorant methods of the old School of Horticulture 

 into daylight ; and to Peter Henderson will belong for 

 generations to come the credit of popularizing, improv- 

 ing, and developing gardening in these United States." 



The opinions above quoted are but types of hundreds 



