The Green Empire the Greenings Built 
From a Tiny Plot of Ground the Greening Enterprise 
Has Reached the Proportions of a Mighty Domain 
Radiating to Every Point of the Compass 
John C. W. Greening, sturdy pioneer, 
who, in 1850, founded the Greening 
Nurseries on one acre of rented land. 
IT is entirely fitting that the great Greening enterprise 
be called an “empire.” Its far-reaching influence, its 
“fruits of success,” indeed exceed the bounds of many 
an empire. 
Stretching to the uttermost corners of America, even 
spanning some of the Seven Seas, the green boughs, 
the vivid blooms, the luscious fruits that have sprung 
from Greening soil have influenced the lives of millions, 
made them more comfortable, happier and healthier. 
Again, the Greening realm bears out the likeness in 
that son has succeeded father into the third generation, 
with the heir apparent representing the fourth generation 
in line of education and training. 
Secrets of Growing Things 
More than four score years ago, John C. W. Greening came 
from Germany to settle on one rented acre of ground at Monroe, 
Michigan. There, in 1850, he set out the first tree. He brought 
with him secrets of growing green things that the Old World 
then knew best. He prospered. His plot of ground grew until 
today more than 1500 acres of flourishing plants in infinite variety 
nod in the Michigan breezes. 
Benjamin J. Greening, grand¬ 
son of the founder, is now 
president of the Greening Nur¬ 
sery Company and the directing 
head of its many and varied 
activities. He has spent his 
entire business life in carrying 
on the Greening traditions. 
Here, photographed in the Old Greening orchard that John 
C. W. Greening planted the day he first voted for Abraham 
Lincoln for president in November, 1860, are, left to right, 
the late Mrs. John C. W. Greening; her son, the late Charles 
E. Greening; Benjamin J. Greening, now president of the 
Greening Nursery Company, and his son, Charles B. Greening. 
Pages 3 to 7 prove Greening’s 
Nation-wide influence 
But these thousand and a half acres represent only a small per 
cent of the Greater Greening estate—the untold millions of 
plant life that have gone forth from Monroe to create beauty 
and bear fruit in the furthest corners of this country. 
The Sons Succeed the Fathers 
Charles E. Greening succeeded his father as the head of the 
House of Greening. He had grown up amidst all the experience 
and the traditions of Greening horticulture and his qualifications 
were unsurpassed. He added more knowledge and greater ex¬ 
perience, so that when the destinies of the enterprise passed 
into the hands of his son, Benjamin J. Greening, grandson of the 
founder, now president of the Greening Nurseries, his vast 
responsibilities had become a heritage to be perpetuated, and 
still further developed. And, as is characteristic of things Amer¬ 
ican, this progress has assumed a more rapid pace as time has 
lapsed into the twentieth century. 
the only scientific, practical. Bud Selection. 
1 
