[From American Gardening.] 



THE MONMOUTH NURSERIES. 



Some Interesting Notes Concerning 

 Them and Their Proprietors. 



There is a peculiarly pleasant jingle to the 

 name Lhtle Silver, which rarely fails to attract 

 the attention of the summer tourist along the 

 coast of New Jersey, and leads him to glance 

 from the car-window and view with pleasure 

 the handsome rough-stone station and the 

 attractively laid-out and well-kept grounds 

 surrounding it. To such 

 as are interested in plant- 

 life it seems an appropriate 

 gateway to one of the most 

 extensive nurseries in the 

 country, which lie a mile 

 beyond. Located in a fer- 

 tile section of Monmouth, 

 New Jersey's banner agri- 

 cultural county, the Rum- 

 son and Monmouth nurse- 

 ries have steadily grown 

 since the establishment of 

 the Monmouth nursery in 

 1878. In that year J. T. 

 Lovett, the present head of 

 the J. T. Lovett Co., took 

 his first step in the building 

 up of a business of his own. 

 A plot of ground barily 

 five acres in extent seemed 

 ample for the immediate 

 needs of the business, v/ith 

 room for growth. Mr. 

 Lovett had served a long 

 apprenticeship w i t h t h e ' \ 



then famed Rumson nurse- 

 ries of A. Hance & .Son, ^1 

 and, though his- new de- 

 parture was strictly in the 

 line of nursery stock, he 

 realized fully the growth of the small-fruit in- 

 dustry throughout the country, and wisely de- 

 termined to make the growing of small-fruit 

 plants his specialty. Steadily the business 

 grew, and farm after farm contiguous to the 

 modest five acres of small-fruits was absorbed 

 to meet the demands of the growing business, 

 until to-day 250 acres are devoted to the 

 growing of nursery stock. * * * 



Not forgetting his first love, Mr. Lovett de- 

 votes many acres to the raising of strawberry 



plants. Every kind known to commerce is 

 tested on the grounds, and plants are grown 

 for sale in quantities according to the desira- 

 bihty of the variety. Raspberry, blackberry, 

 currant and gooseberry plants, with many va- 

 rieties of grape vines, all have large areas de- 

 voted to their growth. Large fields of pears, 

 peaches and other orchard fruits, all showing 

 the highest culture, are noted at various points 

 on the grounds. In suitable locations are 

 grown in great profusion all the desirable 



kinds of evergreens, while large tracts are de- 

 voted to the growing of ornamental trees, 

 shrubs, roses and herbaceous plants. 



One of the chief attractions of these nurse- 

 ries, to the writer, is their test grounds. Here 

 hundreds of new sorts of new fruits are tested 

 side by side with older and better known vari- 

 eties, though it must be confessed that a large 

 percentage of the tested sorts are never intro- 

 duced. These test grounds have become well 

 known to raisers and introducers of new van- 



