A MEMOIR. 31 



but this one, he be the everblooming perpetual blue 

 tnoss rose, he bloom all the time, he cheap at five dollar." 

 I quietly remarked if it bloomed all the time, why was 

 it not blooming now ? He looked at me pityingly and 

 said, " my dear sir, you expect too much. These moss 

 rose just come over in the ship from Paris. You take 

 him home and plant him and he bloom right away, and 

 he keep on blooming." I did not take him home, but I 

 took the story, something in the shape it is now told 

 and had it published in one of the leading New York 

 papers, and in less than a week the " blue rose men" had 

 pulled up stakes, but no doubt, to pitch their camp 

 somewhere else, and set their traps for new victims." 



While he would in a good-natured way touch up the 

 credulity of those who ought to have known better than 

 to have allowed themselves to be imposed upon by horti- 

 cultural humbugs, his sense of humor was so strong that 

 he never failed to tell any similar experience that 

 happened at his own expense. One of the best of these 

 stories is Dutch Peggy's Red Mignonette, which he tells 

 in the following extract from one of his essays written 

 a dozen years ago. " I have said that old Peggy was also 

 a vender of seeds in Washington Market. It is now some- 

 thing over thirty years ago, that a young florist presented 

 himself before her and purchased an ounce of migno- 

 nette. Ever alive to business, Peggy asked him if he 

 had tried the new red mignonette. He protested there 

 was no such thing, but Peggy's candid manner persuaded 

 him and fifty cents were invested. The seed looked 

 familiar, and when it sprouted it looked more familiar, 

 when it bloomed it was far too familiar, for it was red 

 clover. Peggy has long since been gathered to her 

 fathers, and I have entirely forgiven her for selling me 

 the red migtionette." 



Except the usual royalties on his books, paid to him 

 as an author, for most of his contributions to the various 

 horticultural journals, Mr. Henderson did not accept 

 pay. At the same time it is hardly necessary to say, 

 that for the past twenty-five years at least for whatever 



