.B AC K WA RD. 
r IFTY years may or may not seem a long period of time ; it depends largely 
on the point of view. Many there are who, verging on three-score years and 
ten, will be apt to tell us that, as it appears to them, it is not, after all, such 
a long space of time; and yet fifty years stand for a little less than half the 
life of our beloved country as a Republic. So, then, an establishment that 
has rounded out half a century of an uninterrupted and successful business career 
has some reason to be proud on attaining, as we do this year, its GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY. 
We who have succeeded to the conduct of this business would, indeed, be sadly lacking if, on an occasion 
like this, we failed to pay the tribute, however feeble, due to the memory of the founder and developer of this 
house. It is universally conceded that our establishment to-day, and for at least two decades past, ranks among 
the few really great horticultural houses of the world. That we have attained this distinction is due to the genius 
of PETER HENDERSON, who brought to bear on the smallest of beginnings in 1847 a remarkable ability, a 
tireless energy and an industry almost phenomenal; and from it steadily arose the great business fabric he 
transmitted to his sons in 1890, and because he laid its foundations so broad and so deep it stands to-day 
stronger than at any period of its history, and we trust it may not seem presumptuous in us to hope that it will 
remain a monument to the business sagacity of PETER HENDERSON long after the existing management shall 
have passed away. 
It was Mr. Henderson's good fortune to live to see his preeminence as a business man everywhere acknowl¬ 
edged ; and yet, great as was his distinction in that direction, it was only one of his several claims to recognition 
by the horticultural world. As a horticultural teacher, through his published works, which for more than a score 
of years have been and are still to-day the recognized text-books on the subjects of which they treat, his name 
must be forever identified with the horticulture of his adopted land, the land that was his home for fifty years, 
and the land which he always loved so well. For it can be said of PETER HENDERSON, as it was recently 
said of another son of Scotland, the great JOHN WITHERSPOON, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, 
and one of the earlier Presidents of Princeton University : 
‘ Born far away beyond the ocean’s roar, 
He found his fatherland upon this shore, 
And every drop of ardent blood that ran 
Through his great heart was true American.” 
