26 PETER HENDERSON. 



several years later, when he had settled in Jersey City, 

 Mr. Hovey decided to see for himself what his young 

 correspondent was like. He found him not literally 

 handling a spade, but doing pretty nearly the same thing" 

 when he discovered him on the top of a manure pile, turn- 

 ing it with a fork. Soon after this, he began to write for the 

 Horticulturist, then the only horticultural magazine pub- 

 lished in New York ; The Gardener's Monthly, Philadel- 

 phia ; Moore's Rural New- Yorker, Rochester, N. Y. ; The 

 Country Gentleman, Albany, N. Y., and other kindred 

 publications. For some time his contributions were on 

 vegetable culture almost exclusively, ~but as he drifted 

 into the ornamental branch of horticulture, his articles 

 began to cover that department also. Whether as a 

 market gardener, a florist, or a seedsman, Peter Hender- 

 son always considered himself just what these designa- 

 tions imply. That his writings materially aided in 

 building up the different branches of his business is be- 

 yond all question. In fact, from the beginning, all his 

 literary work was done in his leisure intervals, or taken 

 from time that he considered legitimately belonged to 

 his business. At the same time his nature and character- 

 istics were such, that whether it redounded to his 

 benefit or not, the horticultural world always heard 

 from him, when he had any thing to say that he 

 believed would be of general interest or value. The 

 fact is, that it was inherent in the man to add his quota 

 to the sum of human knowledge. Corroborations of 

 this without number could be given, but a single instance 

 will suffice. As far back as 1866, in a magazine 

 discussion over horticultural patents, among other things 

 he said : "I consider that man particularly unfortu- 

 nate who asks a patent for what he thinks to be a dis- 

 covery in horticulture, for there is a free masonry about 

 the craft which begets a generous exchange of informa- 

 tion, and he that holds a ' secret ' to himself or in- 

 trenches his 'discovery' behind a patent right is not usually 

 benefited thereby ;" and further on in the same article, 

 he says : " I never was good at keeping a secret." Such 



