22 PETER HENDERSON. 



of the business. In 1865 he bougfht Mr. Davidson's share 

 in the seed business, the firm then becoming Henderson 

 & Fleming. He continued with Mr. Fleming for six 

 years, when the partnership was dissolved. 



Establishment of the Seed Department. 



In 187 1, on his forty-ninth birthday — an age when 

 most business men begin to think of laying their armor 

 down — he established, in Cortlandt street, New York, the 

 seed business, now known to the whole world under 

 the name of Peter Henderson & Co. The partners in 

 the original firm were Peter Henderson, Wm. H. Carson 

 and Alfred Henderson. In 1876 Mr. Carson withdrew, 

 and a new partnership was formed between Peter Hen- 

 derson, James Reid, and Alfred Henderson. Mr. Raid 

 died in 1887, and from that year until the death of its 

 honored founder, the firm was composed of Peter Hen- 

 derson and his sons, Alfred and Charles. While person- 

 ally most of his time was taken up at the greenhouses, 

 he still was able to throw an enormous amount of energy 

 into this department, which, from its very nature, is 

 capable of a much greater expansion than that of plants, 

 articles almost exclusively a luxury. His fertility in 

 devising schemes for its development was something 

 phenomenal, even to those most familiar with his works 

 and ways. Scarcely a day passed but what practical 

 and valuable suggestions were thrown off from his busy 

 brain. He it was who first conceived, as early as 1872, 

 the idea of offering to the horticultural public, the oppor- 

 tunity of procuring all their supplies from one firm. 

 This idea was quickly perfected in its details and found 

 its expression in a phrase of his own coinage " Every- 

 thing for the Garden," a term in a business sense, almost 

 S5monomous with the name of Peter Henderson. His 

 long experience as a market gardener probably made 

 him realize more than most seedsmen, the necessity of 

 testing seeds before offering them for sale, bht what- 

 ever the cause, the fact remains, that he was the first in 

 this country to initiate the true and natural way of prov- 



