32 PETER HENDERSON. 



he wrote, publishers were only too glad to offer him a 

 liberal remuneration. The American Agriculturist, desir- 

 ous of obtaining all his contributions, for a considerable 

 period paid him a price per column that has been con- 

 sidered perhaps the largest rate ever paid an American 

 writer. About 1869, Tilton's Journal of Horticulture, a 

 monthly magazine then piiblished in Boston, but now 

 out of existence, offered Peter Henderson $6,000 per 

 annum if he would assume the chief editorship. This 

 flattering offer he declined. 



In addition to all this he did a great deal of anony- 

 mous writing on horticultural matters, which, for suffi- 

 cient reasons, he deemed would be more effective than 

 if they had appeared over his signature. Then, too, the in- 

 novations in culture that he advocated in Gardening 

 for Profit and Practical Floriculture, provoked attacks 

 which forced him to defend many of what at that time 

 seemed radical ideas, but most of which have been long 

 since accepted. Besides he had to repel assaults made 

 upon him, for ventilating and exposing numberless old 

 world cultural practices, which in our climate it was found 

 worse than useless to follow. As a horticultural instruc- 

 tor, he never attempted to teach on any subject with which 

 he had not had a personal experience ; hence, when any of 

 his views were controverted, he not only never hesitated 

 to defend them, but few there were in such controversies 

 that could stand up before his sabre cuts of Saxon speech. 

 Over most of his critics, too, he had this great advantage, 

 he could always invite them to " come and see," whether 

 the radical ideas he advanced stood the test of actual 

 practice. Nor did he stand on the defensive only, his 

 good judgment and strong common sense would never 

 permit him to accept without investigation the dictum 

 of any man, however eminent, on any subject that prop- 

 erly came within the field of his profession. We there- 

 fore find him taking issue with Charles Darwin's state- 

 ment that certain plants such as the Drosera or Sundew 

 and our own Carolina Fly-trap (Dionaa Muscipula) are 

 fed by the insects which their wonderful structure 



