86 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
BLOOMINGTON, 
COMPRISINC WITH NORMAL THE GrEAT NuRSERY CeNTER 
• OF THE West. 
One thousand acres in nursery stock—Exceptional 
RA.ILROAD FACILITIES—PROGRESS OF THE NURSERY BUSI¬ 
NESS DURING NEARLY HALF A CENTURY—LiST OF THE 
FIRMS AND THEIR PLANTS—PHCENIX NURSERY COMPANY — 
McLean county nurseries—The home nursury com¬ 
pany. 
Bloomington, McLean Co., Illinois, a city of 30,000 
inhabitants, including Normal suburb, is near the center 
of the state of Illinois, at the intersection of five im¬ 
portant railroads, the Chicago & Alton ; Illinois Central ; 
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis ; Lake Erie 
& Western ; Jacksonville and W^estern divisions of the 
Chicago & Alton, and Kankakee division of the Illinois 
Central, 126 miles from Chicago, 156 miles from St. 
Louis, 206 miles from Dubuque, and 249 miles from 
Cairo. 
The climate, soil and location have made this por¬ 
tion of Illinois renowned as a nursery center, the busi¬ 
ness having been carried on here for over forty years. 
Franklin K. Phoenix, in 1852, established a nursery in 
Bloomington in a small way, but in the following years 
the business was extended, until at one time Mr. 
Phtenix had the largest nursery in the United States. 
Others followed in the business. Most of the other 
firms have since gone out of the business, or the busi¬ 
ness has been continued by other parties. The principal 
nurserymen of Bloomington are the Phoenix Nursery 
Company, Ur. H. Schroeder, Fred. S. Phoenix. F. M. 
Emerson & Co , and F. A. Bailer. At Normal the 
leading nurserymen are Augustine & Co., the Home 
Nursery Co., and W. A. Watson & Co. 
A general line of nursery stock is grown there, in¬ 
cluding all the staple fruits and most of the ornamentals. 
Small fruits are also grown on a large scale there, and 
large shipments of fruit are made to Chicago, Minneap¬ 
olis, St. Paul and other markets. 
THE PHCENIX NURSERY COMPANY. 
The Phoenix Nursery Company of Bloomington, Ill., 
is one of the largest nurseries in the country, having 
nearly seven hundred acres in cultivation, and maintain¬ 
ing thirteen large greenhouses. The Bloomington Nur¬ 
sery was established in 1852 by Franklin K. Phoenix, 
and conducted by him on a very large scale until 1877, 
when he disposed of the business and left the state. 
The present proprietors and officers, who have since 
that time operated the nurseries, incorporated the busi¬ 
ness as the Phoenix Nursery Company. The officers of 
the company are : President, W. E. Rossney ; secre¬ 
tary, George J. Foster. The business has been success¬ 
ful and has been extended largely both in the fruit and 
ornamental departments, as well as the greenhouse 
department. The greenhouses, however, have been 
devoted more largely to the growing of roses and cle¬ 
matis in the past few years than any other varieties of 
greenhouse stock, but a general assortment of green¬ 
house stock is also grown. 
The company has for many years imported largely 
from P'rance, England, and Germany, of both fruit and 
ornamental tree seeds and seedlings for planting, but 
the past winter’s importations of this class of stock was 
larger than usual. They also grow large quantities 
on the nurseries of both fruit and ornamental tree 
seedlings for transplanting. This added to the large 
importations the past winter made their planting prob¬ 
ably the largest in the history of this old, well-known 
nursery establishment. The business of this company 
is both wholesale and retail, and is not confined to any 
one state or locality ; shipments are made to all parts 
of the United States, Canada, Mexico, France, Ger¬ 
many, Australia and New Zealand. 
The packing grounds of this company are at Normal, 
one mile north of Bloomington, located at the crossing 
of the Chicago & Alton and Illinois Central railways. 
The packing grounds contain over twenty acres and are 
covered largely with packing houses, cold storage 
cellars, and other necessary buildings, and are but two 
blocks from the freight houses of the above railways. 
In addition to the above railways, the Lake Erie & 
Western, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis or 
Big Four System, the Kankakee division of the Illinois 
Central and Jacksonville division of the Chicago & Alton 
also enter Bloomington, which gives unexcelled shipping 
facilities to all points. The greenhouses and city offices 
of the company are located on North Park street, 
Bloomington, on electric street car line, between 
Bloomington and Normal. 
MCLEAN county NURSERIES. 
W. A. Watson & Co., of the McLean County Nur¬ 
series, report a large increase in their business during 
the year ; ten per cent, in their wholesale, and twenty- 
five per cent, in their retail trade. They have greatly 
enlarged their packing yard. Their storage cellars have 
a capacity of twenty-five carloads or more. This firm 
has also a large acreage M Topeka, Kan., devoted 
largely to apple trees and apple seedlings, of which they 
make quite a specialty. They report one sale of 65,000 
apple trees on one order. Their planting for last spring 
consisted in part of 300,000 apple root grafts, all on 
first-cut (whole root) ; 85,000 XX impt. pear seedlings ; 
60,000 No. I plums, one-half Myrobolan and one-half 
Mariana; 70,000 Mahaleb cherry, 20,000 XX quince. 
Besides this they have transplanted and set in nursery 
lines 500,000 Arbor Vitae and 50,000 assorted evergreens, 
with the usual supply of shrubs, vines and cuttings. 
Their stock of Balsam Fir is unsurpassed—fully 50,000 
