August  24,  1899. 
161 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
DEATH  OF  MR.  T.  FRANCIS  RIVERS. 
It  must  needs  be  that  our  horticultural  world,  like  the  palace  and  the 
cottage,  shall  from  moon  to  moon  pay  its  due  tribute  to  Father  Time. 
Already  that  last  and  most  kindly  physician  has  in  this  year  removed 
from  our  midst  at  least  three  whose  names  carry  with  them  a  sprcial 
measure  of  respect,  and  now  the  great  pruner  of  mankind  has  again 
entered  our  garden  to  take  his  toll.  Whose  is  this  name  ?  Well,  it  is 
the  honoured  name  of  Rivers.  Upon  the  17th  day  of  August  there 
passed  away  at  Sawbridgeworth  Thomas  Francis  Rivers  at  the  age  of 
sixty-eight  years. 
Twenty-two  years  ago  this  paper  had  to  record  the  decease  of  the  late 
Mr.  Francis  Rivers’  father,  known  in  horticulture  as  Thomas  Rivers. 
The  lives  and  the  works  of  these  two  Rivers  cover  nearly  the  whole  of 
the  Victorian  era.  This  age  not  only  interests  ourselves  from  the  fact  that 
we  have  helped  to  make  it,  but  inasmuch  as  its  exploits  in  almost  every 
department  of  knowledge  have  never  been  excelled  in  history,  we  feel  a 
personal  pride  in  having  belonged 
to  it.  Moreover,  as  horticulturists 
it  is  certain  posterity  will  envy  us 
the  good  fortune  of  being  contem¬ 
poraries  and  the  associates  of 
those  who  have  during  the  last 
fifty  years  laboured  in  raising 
English  gardening  to  a  height 
inconceivable  to  our  forefathers, 
and  unsurpassed  among  the  nations. 
Years  hence,  when  the  lusty  pro¬ 
geny'  of  Britannia  shall  have 
appropriated  and  developed  our 
present  knowledge  of  fruits  and 
fruit  culture  to  a  point  beyond  our 
imagining,  they  will  still  fail  to 
realise  how  much  they  are  indebted 
to  the  observations  made  and  the 
successes  attained  in  the  quiet 
village  of  Sawbridgeworth  during 
the  last  seventy  years  of  this 
century'. 
Seventy  years,  however,  does 
not  represent  the  duration  of  the 
influence  of  the  Rivers  family  in 
that  neighbourhood.  It  is  a 
hundred  and  eighty'  years  since 
the  original  Sawbridgeworth  Rivers 
migrated  thither  from  Beikshire. 
But  those  were  not  the  days  of 
expansion,  population  for  nearly  a 
century  but  languidly  increased, 
and  railways  had  not  yet  opened 
up  distant  and  easy  channels  of 
trade.  Hence  the  business  of  the 
earlier  Rivers  took  no  great  de¬ 
velopment,  their  efforts  being  con¬ 
fined  merely  to  the  supplying  of  the 
modest  demands  which  the  primitive 
notions  of  the  neighbourhood  made 
upon  their  establishments. 
With  the  French  Revolution,  however,  came  the  European  awakening, 
penetrating  even  to  such  placid  Arcadian  English  villages  as  Sawbridge¬ 
worth,  and  just  as  the  Revolutionary  wars  were  blending  into  the 
despotism  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte — in  1798 — Thomas  Rivers,  the  father 
of  the  subject  of  our  notice,  was  born.  Brought  up  amid  a  generation 
quickening  with  the  new  impulses  communicated  to  it  by  the  new  science 
and  the  new  politics,  the  prophet  of  modern  fruit  culture  was 
gradually  moulded  to  his  work.  Then  as  the  opportunity  begotten  of 
growing  wealth  and  growing  population  came  (and,  curiously,  almost 
exactly  with  the  introduction  of  railways  in  1827),  Thomas  Rivers 
entered  upon  his  mission  as  a  public  teacher.  It  would  be  deeply 
interesting  to  recount  here  the  writings  and  the  experiments  of  the 
elder  Rivers,  as  described  in  this  Journal  twenty-two  years  ago  by  ono 
who  w’as  his  boon  companion  in  their  joint  specialty.  To  the  enthusiast 
the  recital  is  absolutely  fascinating,  but  our  business  is  with  the  son. 
Francis  Rivers  was  born  upon  the  eve  of  the  great  Reform  Bill  in 
1831,  and  spent  his  boyhood  amid  the  din  of  free  trade  and  protection, 
when  Cobden  was  labouring  to  free  English  commerce  from  the 
trammels  thrown  around  it  by  an  injurious  system.  •  Country  life 
Fig.  34.— Me.  T. 
was  still  primitive,  and,  as  judged  by  our  present  luxurious  standards, 
rough  and  dull.  A  prize  fight  then  was  the  equivalent  of  what  an 
international  cricket  match  is  now,  and  the  scene  of  some  Homeric 
battle  was  not  infrequently  the  neighbourhood  of  Sawbridgeworth. 
Like  the  large  and  liberal  minded  man  he  was,  Mr.  Thomas  Rivers 
sent  his  son  to  finish  his  education  in  France,  at  Dunkirk  and 
Boulogne.  It  was  in  this  wav  that  Mr.  Francis  Rivers  acquired  that 
command  of  literary  and  colloquial  French  which  so  greatly  facilitated 
his  intercourse  with  the  horticulturists  and  societies  of  Belgium  and 
France,  whether  presiding  at  meetings  or  conferring  privately  with 
them  as  individuals.  It  likewise  extended  the  field  of  his  knowledge, 
for  with  greater  literary  instincts  and  tastes  than  his  father,  ho 
inherited  the  same  love  of  excursive  reading.  From  his  father  also 
he  acquired,  merely  by  contact,  an  insight  jnto  the  new  methods 
of  evolution  growiug  up  around,  and  with  J  increasing  age  and  con¬ 
stant  observation,  learned  at  length  to  draw  useful  deductions  for 
himself  regarding  the  operations  of  Nature. 
Working  thus  in  the  laboratory 
prepared  by  his  predecessor  it  was 
only  natural  that  Mr.  Rivers  should 
become  unconsciously  impregnated 
with  the  genius  loci,  and  having 
graduated  by  virtue  of  long  ex¬ 
perience  in  so  valuable  a  school, 
should  ultimately  assume  the  cares 
of  office  as  his  father’s  strength 
declined.  Long  previously  to  this, 
however,  hi3  influence  had  made 
itself  felt,  so  that  when  Mr.  Thomas 
Rivers  came  to  depart  in  1877,  no 
perceptible  alteration  in  the  tra¬ 
ditions  of  the  house  resulted  from 
the  change.  It  is  true  the  ten¬ 
dencies  were  less  eclectic.  The 
elder  Rivers,  beginning  with  the 
Rose,  worshipped  at  its  shrine  for 
years  ;  and  then,  with  charac¬ 
teristic  energy,  plunged  with  equal 
ardour,  and  equal  success,  into  the 
tullus  of  Apples,  Pears,  Peaches, 
and  other  stone  fruits.  Mr.  Francis 
Rivers  confined  his  efforts  rather 
to  the  elaboration  of  new  varieties 
of  the  Nectarine,  the  Plum,  and 
the  Green  Gage.  Of  his  achieve¬ 
ments  in  these  departments  it  seems 
almost  superfluous  to  speak,  seeing 
that  the  results  are  still  so  fresh 
in  the  memories  of  those  who  have 
attended  the  great  exhibitions  of 
the  last  fifteen  years. 
It  is  almost  impossible  to  say 
in  what  direction  Mr.  Rivers’  best 
efforts  have  been  directed.  That 
he  has  for  all  practical  purposes 
revolutionised  the  Nectarine,  added 
FRANCIS  Rivebs.  t0  the  length  of  the  season  in 
which  ripe  Peaches  may  be  had, 
raised  and  introduced  Pears,  Apples,  Plums,  and  Cherries,  and  was  the 
raiser  of  the  now  celebrated  Nonesuch  dwarfing  stock  for  Apples  is  well 
known.  In  these  respects  alone  his  work  was  monumental.  He  also 
did  an  immense  amount  of  good  and  encouraged  the  spread  of  fruit 
culture  by  the  aid  of  practical  essays  on  all  phases  of  the  subject,  of 
which  he  was  a  master,  these  being  read  at  the  leading  gardeners 
meetings  in  the  country,  and  further  distributed  by  the  aid  of  the 
gardening  press. 
Mr.  Rivers’  knowledge  of  fruits  was  profound,  and  the  numbers  ot 
new  varieties  that  have  emanated  from  Sawbridgeworth  since  his  active 
leadership  of  the  firm  were  extraordinary.  He  commenced  seed  sowing 
when  a  boy,  and  during  his  career  tested  the  fruits  of  hundreds  of  his 
seedlings,  retaining  only  those  which  displayed  distinct  characteristics. 
Of  Nectarines  alone  he  placed  two  dozen  varieties  in  commerce.  Lord 
Napier  was  one  of  the  first  to  become  a  general  favourite,  while  the 
brilliant  Early  Rivera  made  an  even  quicker  advance,  and  the  precocious 
Cardinal  is  rapidly  finding  its  way  into  gardens  at  home  ami  abroad. 
There  are  also  undoubtedly  fine  varieties  in  the  Poets’  series  — Chaucer, 
Dryden,  Milton,  Newton  and  Spenser.  Only  a  week  or  two  since  we 
