The Garden Magazine, June, 1920 
265 
including plants, and exceeding skill in their arrangement. His 
quiet strength of character and his gentle, kindly personality 
made him strong friends among his associates. He was the first 
President of the American Society of Landscape Architects and 
served for many years on its Executive Board. 
James Sturgis Pray. 
F. W. BRUGGERHOF 
1830-1920 
M REDERICK W. BRUGGERHOF, familiarly known 
as the “grand old man of the seed world,” who died on 
March 8th, was a powerful influence throughout the 
whole seed industry in America. This he had seen ad- 
vance from small beginnings of purely local and domestic interest 
to a position of great importance, ranking indeed as one of the 
dominant industries of the world. For when Mr. Bruggerhof 
began in the branch store of the Thorburns at St. Louis, Mo., 
commercial seed. growing was hardly thought of in America; 
but in the eighty years that he served continuously in the 
business, it has grown steadily until to-day, American seeds are 
produced in enormous acreages. 
Taken in as a partner in the old house at 1 5 John Street, New 
York in 1857, Mr. Bruggerhof rose ultimately to the presi- 
dency of his concern, occupying that position since 1894. 
When American plants were first receiving attention in 
Europe, he established for his house an international reputation 
for collecting and distributing throughout the world American 
tree seeds. Test and trial grounds at Noroton, Conn., were an 
early enterprise of his, and there he made his home, working con- 
tinuously toward his ideals of purity in strain, being of that type 
of seedsman believing in a 50 per cent, germination, with purity, 
rather than in a 100 per cent, germination and perhaps a lower 
standard. 
He was active in the formation of the Wholesale Seedmen’s 
League, organized to establish a code of ethics in the seed 
trade — particularly a standard of honor in the craft, so that 
only those who maintained standards of quality would be 
recognized as established seedsmen. It is very largely due to 
his idealism that the American seed trade took the place as 
an important industry that it occupies to-day. 
THE death of John Charles Olmsted on February 25, 
the profession of Landscape Architecture lost the most 
War representative man of his time, whose work throughout 
(fflOSsf the United States constitutes an enduring monument to 
his memory. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1852, he re- 
ceived the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy from Yale in 1875, 
and then took up the profession of Landscape Architecture 
under his uncle, Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. In 1878 he 
became a partner, under the firm name of F. L. & J. C. Olmsted, 
and, upon the former’s retirement about twenty years later, 
became, and till his death remained, the senior member of the 
widely known Olmsted firm. 
Thus for more than forty years he was in active practice, 
and during all that period was concerned with large and im- 
portant undertakings of widely varying character. Hundreds 
of private estates in all parts of the country, and the grounds 
of many different institutions — universities, schools, asylums, 
sanitariums, libraries, state capitols, town halls, and exposition 
buildings — were developed by him. With his partners, he was 
concerned in the design of the grounds of the World’s Fair in 
Chicago, 1893; the plans for the Seattle Exposition, 1909; the 
Lewis and Clark Exposition, Portland, Oregon, 1906; and the 
Canadian Industrial Exposition at Winnipeg, Manitoba. 
His greatest and most lasting service, however — the one of 
most far-reaching influence — has probably been in park design. 
He was concerned in the design and development of the great 
park system of Greater Boston, Mass.; the exceptionally beauti- 
ful, large parks of Hartford, Conn.; parks of Brooklyn, N. Y., 
including the Shore Drive; and theextensive Essex County, N. J., 
system, as well as the parks of Bridgeport and Fall River, Mass., 
Buffalo, Rochester, and Watertown, N. Y., Chicago, 111 ., 
Dayton, O., Detroit, Mich., Milwaukee, Wis., Seattle, Wash., 
Spokane and Portland, Ore. and Portland, Maine; and, in the 
south, Louisville, Ky., Charleston, S. C., Atlanta, Ga., and 
New Orleans. 
Among other notable powers and professional characteristics, 
he had a remarkable visual memory, a painstaking care for the 
details of his schemes, a thorough knowledge of his materials 
JOHN C. OLMSTED 
1852-1920 
