104 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
The Late J. T. Lovett 
When the late J. T. Lovett, Little Silver, N. J., passed 
away, he left behind him an impress on the nursery trade 
that deserves more than passing notice. 
The rush and progress of the present day business 
scarcely permits a halt to give a thought to those pioneers, 
who from small beginnings helped so much to develope 
the nursery trade of the country. 
The following penned by Mr. Lovett some time before 
his death while in a reminiscent mood proves how his 
chosen profession was truly a labor of love, culminating 
in the famous nurseries he founded: 
My memory drifts back to the sixties, and O, bow sweet those 
reveries are! They come to me as perfume of the Lily of the 
Valley and of Violets, borne from an unseen world upon a cool, 
gentle, summer’s breeze. Again I am a boy, standing among the 
flowers I loved so well—as free from worry and care as the 
birds that sang in the shrubbery or the Bunnies that playfully 
gamboled about my primitive garden. -How distinctly I remem¬ 
ber the catalogs of B. K. Bliss, Brigg Bros., James Vick and 
others—just how they looked, the illustrations, the very kind of 
type used in printing them—books that I studied with more in¬ 
tense interest and keener pleasure than any works of fiction 
which I have ever had the good fortune to read. Entirely with¬ 
out experience and with no guide save the catalogs referred to, 
I marvel at the success that attended my first attempts at flori¬ 
culture; for everything lived and grew well; even Verbenas 
from seed, which frequently fail in this enlightened day with 
many a professional florist, assisted by every modern facility. 
From the instructions in Vick’s Floral Guide, as the great Vick 
styled his catalog, I constructed a hoVbed and planted the seeds 
at the time and in the manner therein told. I remember too, 
how my boy friends poked fun at me for spending my pin money 
for flower seeds, and how they laughed still louder when I sent 
a dollar and a half from my home in Pennsylvania to B. K. 
Bliss way up at Springfield, Mass., for a peck of new potato; and 
how I realized the following spring, more than eighty dollars 
from the product. It was my first commercial venture in 
gardening and proved again the adage, “He who laughs last 
laughs best.” These delightful memories of my early experiences 
come over me like a flood but I must put them aside. Before 
doing so, I beg leave to refer again to the catalog of the king of 
