THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
259 
Tour Around the Grounds 
Following these remarks, we started on a tour of the 
nursery, visiting first the packing house. We were shown the 
electric motor in the box factory on the second story, and in 
the main room our attention was called to the little ladders 
conveniently located at the posts, and to the trolley running 
around three sides of the room, affording facilities for lowering 
boxes by a tackle to the first floor with but a few second’s 
work. A spur of the railroad track comes close to this build¬ 
ing. 
We were shown some imported plants, and of special 
interest among these was a specimen of Picea excelsa pumila 
which is sixty years old and was imported this year. 
Crossing the railroad, we saw a thirfty looking block of 
young rhododendrons, which are to be protected before the 
hot weather comes, according to the plan of the Holland 
nurserymen, by slatted screens about six feet high. Not far 
from here, Mr. Wyman pointed out a tract which was a 
forest seven years ago. He said he had 
used six thousand pounds of dynamite 
here in clearing nineteen acres. 
The young evergreens in this section 
of the nursery were a delight to the eye. 
They were of all sizes from a few inches up 
to as many feet, according to age or var¬ 
iety, and of numerous shades of green, or 
may we say, in some cases, of blue? A 
small block of Pinus mugho was com¬ 
mented on. These were seedlings. When 
true to family, they are as broad as tall, 
but many people prefer the varying forms. 
Cedars in large numbers and different 
sizes were called to our attention, also 
Koster’s blue spruce, Juniperus stricta, 
Taxus cuspidata hrevifolia, and Biota. 
While the junipers are sometimes hard to 
transplant, they are nearly all hardy in 
Mr. Wyman’s location. During the past 
winter the temperature dropped to fifteen 
degrees below zero. 
The herbaceous grounds were dotted with many colors, as 
here and there various plants were in bloom, the names of 
most of which are a mystery to the layman. The thing 
which interested us most in this part of the nursery was the 
large block of German iris. It seems as if there must have 
been nearly a hundred varieties, giving the appearance at 
some distance of being purple or yellow, but revealing on 
closer inspection, many charming tints intermingled with 
these. Unfortunately a little past their prime at the time 
of the nurserymen’s visit, they yet gave a good idea of what 
the showing must have been a few days earlier. 
A somewhat hurried inspection of the Bay State Fann 
showed large sized deciduous stock, roses, Spiraea aurea with 
its golden leaves and white blossoms, seed grown Berberis 
Thunhergii, and many other interesting plants. Roses are 
sold by the firm in large quantities. 
Mr. Wyman has the greatest confidence in Mr. Bennett, 
his^superintendent, who was present and assisted in entertain¬ 
ing the visitors. Mr. Bennett was formerly with the W. & T. 
Smith Company of Geneva, but has now been at the Bay 
State Nurseries for several years. Mr. Wyman says one 
can’t buy land around there without paying an outrageous 
price. A large territory is covered l)y the film’s shipments, 
one order going as far as Alberta this year. 
At the close of the afternoon, everyone agreed that we had 
had a most generous and agreeable host, and the guests 
returned to Boston with pleasant memories of the day’s 
outing. 
Obituary 
J. J. HARRISON 
Late President Storrs& Harrison Co., Painesville, O 
JAMES J. HARRISON 
The older members of the American Association of Nur¬ 
serymen, while in session in Boston, were deeply stirred by 
the intelligence that its one remaining charter member 
had passed away. James J. Harrison, president of the Storrs 
& Harrison Company, Painesville, Ohio, 
died in his winter home at Eustace, 
Florida, Tuesday, June ii. 
Mr. Harrison was born in Kent County, 
England, August, 1829, and had, there¬ 
fore, reached the ripe old age of eighty- 
three years. He came with his parents 
to Ohio in his early boyhood. He was 
educated in Cleveland, following his 
common school work with a course in a 
business college, and later from Hiram 
College. As a young man, he became 
interested in plant growth and plant 
propagation. The gardening instincts of 
the Englishman were dormant, and the 
o]3portunity in the new land for making 
comfortable homes appealed to him. 
Among his first experiences was the top¬ 
grafting of seedling fruit trees around 
the homes of settlers in the Middle West. 
These trips carried him as far south as 
Georgia and Arkansas about the middle 
of the last century. About that time he engaged in fruit 
growing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but in 1856 he estab¬ 
lished the nursery which has now grown to such tremendous 
dimensions, by starting the growing of plants and fruit trees 
on Menton Avenue, Painesville, a place which was afterward 
known as the Jayne & Cole Nurseries. In 1858 he formed a 
partnership with Jesse Storrs of North Ridge. They began 
with a small tract of four or five acres, and this was the 
firm from which the present huge enterprise of Storrs & 
Harrison Company, comprising over a thousand acres of 
cultivated nursery stock, has grown. Mr. Harrison was 
president of the Storrs & Harrison Company from the time 
of its organization until the time of his death. During this 
long stretch of years he was constantly in the harness, 
although since 1890 he allowed his subordinates to take 
charge of the more active and strenuous features of the 
work. Although never a vigorous man, he was one of the 
most faithful attendants at fruit growers’ meetings. In his 
passing the American Association of Nurserymen loses 
