500 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
t June 23, 1887. 
Loddiges of Hackney -was flourishing at the beginning 
of Her Majesty’s reign, and those who knew him will 
ever remember the benevolent countenance and genial 
courtesy of Conrad Loddiges. The locality of this famed 
establishment is to be found in Loddiges Square, another 
vile invention of the speculating builder as a substitute 
for green fields and flower gardens. 
Coming nearer the City there was the famed Mile End 
Road nursery of Gordon & Thomson. Gordon, after 
whom that beautiful shrub Gordonia was named, had 
long since died, but the nursery was still kept up by 
James Thomson, who in his turn had to yield to the 
pressing necessities of the time, and become a martyr to 
bricks and mortar. 
On the south side of the river were Wilmott and 
Chaundy of Lewisham, large and important nurserymen 
and seed growers. At New Cross Cormack & Son, also 
great nurserymen and seed growers, who introduced Cor- 
mack’s Prince Albert Pea, and who had for partner George 
Sinclair, the author of “ Hortus Gramineus Woburn- 
ensis ” after he retired from the service of the Duke of 
Ledford at Woburn. These are all gone, as is also Myatt 
the market gardener hard by who was the first to intro¬ 
duce the leafstalks of Rhubai'b as a cooked esculent; 
and the ditch beyond New Cross Turnpike Gate, into 
which the writer of this stumbled in a dense fog in 1837, 
is long since filled up, probably replaced by some filthy 
sewer or foul drain diffusing fever and fragrance round. 
At Camberwell was the well-known nursery of Buchanan 
and Son. In Walworth, Broom, the noted bulb grower 
and florist, cultivated his Tulip beds and Lily bulbs, 
before he removed to the Clapham Boad. At Clapham the 
celebrated Heath culture of Fairbairn & Son was con¬ 
ducted ; while a little further on, at Tooting, was the 
still greater and more important business of Rollisson and 
Son. And now to complete the circle we shall conclude 
our notice of nurseries by that of Chandler, the noted 
Camellia growers of the Wandsworth Road, Yauxhall. 
And speaking of Yauxhall reminds us that the lights of 
the celebrated gardens had not yet been extinguished, 
nor had Mr. Simpson ceased to raise his hat and exhibit 
is calves, bidding welcome to his distinguished patrons. 
There are some of the provincial nurseries that deserve 
a passing notice in such a record as this. The vast 
nurseries of Miller & Sweet of Bristol are no more, but 
a portion of the ground and homestall are in the occupa¬ 
tion of Messrs. Garaway & Son. The great nursery of 
Mackie of Norwich has become extinct, and of Falla of 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Skirving of Liverpool. But there 
are still in vaster proportions than at the beginning of 
the reign Kichard Smith & Co. of Worcester; the two 
houses of Dicksons of Chester ; Fisher, Son, & Sibray 
of Sheffield; Backhouse & Son of York. The old house of 
Adam Paul is represented by the two prosperous establish^ 
raents at Cheshunt and Waltham Cross. The cultures of 
fruit trees and Hoses at S'awb ridge worth are continued 
with ever-increasing ardour andabiiity ; and the two great 
houses of Lueombe Pince, & Co., and Yeitch & Son of 
Exeter, have still their representatives. A remarkable 
circumstance in connection with the nursery trade is how 
families of the Quaker community have all but ceased 
to be associated with it. At the beginning of the Queen’s 
reign there were the great house of Mackie of Norwich, 
already referred to ; John Atkins of Northampton, lately 
dead, and in these recent times better known as Atkins of 
Painswick; John Young of Taunton; and James Back¬ 
house & Son of York. The last is the only one of these 
now in existence. 
The principal seedsmen of the metropolis at the com¬ 
mencement of Her Majesty’s reign were, Jacob Wrench 
and Son of London Bridge, still in existence, and this is 
the only one of the “ large houses ” that is. The names 
of Beck & Allen, of the Strand; W. & J. Noble, of 
Fleet Street; Warner, Seaman & Warner, of Cornhill; 
Field & Child, of Thames Street; John Gardiner, ol the 
City Road; Hay, Anderson, and Sangster, of Newington 
Butts; George Charlwood, of Covent Garden; Nash, 
Adams and Nash, of the Strand have all passed away. 
The present house of Nutting & Son was then represented 
by Flanacan & Nutting; that of Rutley & SilverRck by 
George Batt in the Strand; the great agricultural seed 
house of Thomas Gibbs & Son has become merged in that 
of George Gibbs, who has adopted the former title. James 
Carter at that time had a very tiny shop in Holborn, 
where he had a well deserved reputation for scientific 
knowledge of his leading commodity of flower seeds, and 
where lie carried on a prosperous business, little dreaming, 
good worthy man, that within the same reign that little 
shop would become a range of great warehouses, and the 
business one of the largest in London. 
At that time the important house of Hurst & Son did 
not exist, nor did that of Waite, Nash & Co., only so far 
that it absorbed the old house of Nash of the Strand. 
Robert Cooper of Southwark Street (now deceased) was 
at the time an office clerk and traveller to Nobles of Fleet 
Street; but there is no important house existing now, 
which had its origin prior to the Queen’s accession, except 
those we have mentioned. Although not strictly speaking 
a London house, though they have offices in London, that 
of Messrs. Sutton & Sons of Reading must be noticed as 
one of the pre-Victorian period, which has acquired a 
development m one generation such as is not to be sur¬ 
passed for extent and reputation. Those who remember 
the small shop in the Market Place of Reading, and who 
have seen the vast storehouses that are necessary to 
supply the present requirements of the establishment, 
cannot but be struck with surprise at the accomplishment 
of such results, involving as they must have done resources 
of mental power and business capacity rarely met with. 
There is a remarkable contrast between “the trade” 
of the Queen’s reign and the former, and that is the ideas 
they had with regard to catalogues and advertising. At 
that time the house that advertised was hardly considered 
“ respectable,” and certainly not “ genteel.” But certain 
houses thought otherwise, and persistently appealed to 
the public through the weekly pages that were ready to 
afford them the desired publicity. The consequence was 
that they shot ahead of their antiquated rivals, and many 
of them are now the most extensive and the most pro¬ 
sperous to be found. In fact we may say that almost if 
not all the great firms that have sprung into existence 
during Her Majesty’s reign have attained their position 
through advertising. Another peculiarity of the old- 
fashioned trade was not to issue priced catalogues. Cata¬ 
logues of their saleable commodities were common enough, 
but to indicate the prices of them was a privilege that the 
public was not admitted to. How all these are changed ! 
At the time of Her Majesty’s accession to the throne 
the literature of horticulture was represented by John 
Claudius Loudon, a man ever to be remembered ; Charles 
M’lntosh, Joseph Paxton, Joseph Harrison, Robert Mar- 
nock, and George Glenny. “ Loudon’s Gardeners’ Maga¬ 
zine ” was the leading gardening periodical, and continued 
to be till Loudon’s health failed, and it had to encounter 
the rivalry of cheaper monthlies, and the still more power¬ 
ful attractions of two weekly papers. The two monthlies 
