46 PETER HENDERSON. 



of expressions given utterance to both by individuals 

 and horticultural journals after his death, and when this 

 significant fact is remembered that from 1866 up to this 

 hour that his horticultural teachings have not been trav- 

 ersed to any appreciable degree, it shows conclusively 

 the popular estimate which has been placed upon his 

 works ; and that judgment steadily maintained for a 

 quarter of a century, posterity is not likely to reverse. 

 The unpretentious man who, during the last twenty-five 

 years of his life, received eulogistic letters and personal 

 thanks from at least seventy thousand people, for what 

 his horticultural writings alone had done for them, left 

 an impress that will endure far beyond his day and 

 generation. 



The coming years we doubt not will be guardians of 

 his fame ; for wherever rugged manhood toils with 

 plow or spade, the memory of Peter Henderson will lend 

 dignity and hope unto his labor. Wherever gentle 

 woman bends anxiously o'er fragile blossoms, the memory 

 of Peter Henderson will be as dew to fall upon their 

 petals. And those who honored him may feel sure of 

 this, that his monument will be enduring, for it is rooted 

 in old Mother Earth, and in the flowers, her faithful 

 children. 



His Possibilities. 



It is somewhat remarkable that, in the multitude of trib- 

 utes paid to the memory of Peter Henderson, many 

 would so far digress as to dwell upon his possibilities in 

 other walks of life. That he would have attained dis- 

 tinction in almost any direction was a very commonly 

 expressed opinion. Some were so far interested in his 

 career as to suggest certain lines in which, if he had 

 received the essential education, he would have attained 

 eminence. For instance the Phrenological Journal said, 

 " if he had been trained to engineering in its broadest 

 sense, literature in connection with science, law in con- 

 nection with ethics, he would have been a strong man." 

 Singularly enough there is one calling which so far as 



