2l8 



Annals of Horticulture. 



business operation and the futility of getting a trade for wild 

 plants," 



Mr. Taylor, of Charlotte, Vermont, began to ship American 

 plants to England as early as 1854, and for some twenty years 

 he collected rather extensively for that purpose and to supply 

 a small home demand. C. G. Pringle, of the same place, 

 well-known of late as one of the most indefatigable explorers 

 of our southwestern and the Mexican floras, was one of the 

 earliest dealers in native plants. " It was in the autumn of 

 1873," he writes, "that I began to collect American plants 

 for cultivation by supplying Asa Gray with roots of Cypripe- 

 dium arietinitm for planting in the Cambridge Botanic Gar- 

 den, and George E. Davenport with many living ferns, cypri- 

 pediums, trilliums, etc., which he shared with John Robinson, 

 Minot B. Pratt and others. The next year I planted a wild 

 garden and sent large numbers of native plants in exchange 

 to Dr. George Thurber, Dr. Hooker, of Kew, and Van 

 Houtte, of Ghent. From exchanging I went on in 1875 to 

 selling, and supplied several European firms with many North 

 American species collected by myself and others all over the 

 country. The two following years I snatched a few weeks 

 each fall from my breeding of plants to carry on this business. 

 Then in 1878, anticipating becoming a botanical traveler, I 

 associated with me in the plant trade my cousin, F. H. 

 Horsford. Nearly every year in Mexico I have had the good 

 fortune to discover some plant of value for garden culture. 

 In 1887 it was Tigridia Pringlei. In 1888 the most note- 

 worthy was Tigridia buccifera. And since then other species 

 of tigridia have come in my way." The first printed price- 

 list of the firm was issued in 1880 to the foreign trade. 



Edward Gillett, Southwick, Massachusetts, entered the 

 trade in 1875 by selling Rhexia Virginica, Lygodium palmatum, 

 Nymphcea odor at a, Hepatica triloba and a few others. His first 

 catalogue was issued in 1877, but so late as 1880 only about 

 fifty species were offered. In 1881 he issued an important cat- 

 alogue, which appears to have been the first considerable ef 

 fort of the kind, and consequently I have quoted it freely in 

 the following census. In 1889 Messrs. Gillett & Horsford 

 formed a partnership which continued until near the close of 

 1891. 



One of the most important nurseries of American plants is 



