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Ball, George Jacob Ball, George, Jr. Barry, Charles Patrick Barry, Frederic Gaffney Barry, Patrick Barry, William Crawford Belden, James Lockwood Berckmans, Prosper Julius A. Berger, H. H. Blanc, Albert A. Bliss, Benjamin K. Bodger, John Braslan, Charles P. Breck, Charles H. B. Breck, Joseph Bridgeman, Alfred Bridgeman, Thomas Briggs, Charles Briggs, John T. Brown, Charles and Robert Buist, Robert Burbank, Luther Burpee, David Burpee, W. Atlee Chase, Lewis Childs, John Lewis Comstock, William G. Conard, Alfred Fellenberg Crosman, Charles F. Crosman, Charles W. Downing, Andrew Jackson Downing, Charles Dreer, Henry Augustus Dreer, William F. Ellwanger, George Ellwanger, Henry B. Farquhar, James F.M. Farquhar, John K.M.L. Farquhar, Robert Ferry, Dexter Mason Field, Henry Ames Germain, Eugene Gillet, Felix Gregory, James J.H. Harris, Joseph Harrison, J.J. Henderson, Peter Hibbert, Thomas Hill, E.G. Hoopes, Josiah Hubbard, Theodore S. Ilgenfritz, I.E. Jackson, A.E. Kelsey, Harlan P. Landreth, Burnet Landreth, Cuthbert Landreth, David Landreth, David, Jr. Lippincott, Carrie H. Maule, William Henry M'Mahon, Bernard Meehan, Thomas Michell, Henry F. Morse, C.C. Munson, Thomas Volney Musser, Henry L. Northrup, Jesse E. Olds, Leavitt L. Park, George Watt Payne, Theodore Perkins, Charles Prince, Benjamin Prince, Robert Prince, William (1725-1802) Prince, William (1766-1842) Prince, William Robert Purdy, Carl Pyle, Robert Rawson, Warren W. Reasoner, Pliny Ward Rice, R. Niles Salbach, Carl Saul, James Saul, John Scheepers, John Scott, Robert Shepherd, Theodosia B. Sibley, Hiram Stark, James Hart Storrs, Jesse Sturtevant, Edmund D. Templin, Lewis Thorburn, Grant Vaughan, John Charles Vick, James Vincent, Richard, Jr. Weber, Carl Christian Weber, Henry J. White, Emma V. Wilder, Marshall Pinckney Willard, Stephen F.

Ball, George Jacob (1874-1949) Glen Ellyn, Illinois. was born in Milford, Ohio in 1874.  At thirteen he was working in a greenhouse near Cincinnati.  For thirteen years he worked with a leading seed company, a rose grower, and a commercial cut flower grower.  He settled in the Chicago area after serving in the Spanish-American war.  By 1905 he was growing sweet peas and offered them to the cut flower trade.  He built greenhouses in Glen Ellyn, Illinois and began to develop improved strains of asters, sweet peas, and calendulas.  In 1915, he gathered seed from Orange King calendula and sent it to a California grower.  This crop was so successful that he was financially able to establish the Geo. J. Ball, Inc. His first one-page seed list was printed and mailed to growers in 1918.  Ball Seed Company continued to expand and in 1927 they moved to West Chicago.  In 1933, the Ball Trial Gardens were opened.  In 1937, George Ball published the first issue of GrowerTalks, and in 1938 Ball was elected president of the Society of American Florists.  Ball died in 1949 and his four sons, George K., Victor, Robert, and Carl, took over Ball Seed Co.  The company now owns ten other horticultural firms including W. Atlee Burpee & Co., and a number of other companies, and the parent company is called Ball Horticultural Company.  Anna Caroline Ball became owner and CEO of Ball Horticultural Co. in 1995. The Ball family has published George's diary, detailing his daily business plans. Sources: GG The History of U. S. Floriculture;@Greenhouse Grower, v17 n10, Fall 1999, pp28-37. Taylor, J. M. (2014). Visions of loveliness. Athens, OH: Swallow Press. ^top Ball, George, Jr. (1951-)--was born in the suburbs of Chicago in 1951.  He was the son of Carl Ball, who was one of four brothers that took over the Ball Seed Company in 1949 when their father died.  In 1963, George started harvesting petunia seed for his family s business, and he worked for the company in Illinois and Costa Rica during the summers when he was in high school and college.  In 1971, after studying at Bard College and De Paul University, he joined Ball Seed as an assistant grower.  He rose through the ranks and was appointed president of Pan American Seed in 1984.  In 1991, George acquired the W. Atlee Burpee & Company and became became CEO and Chairmanpresident. In 1998, he purchased Fordhook Farm in Doylestown, PA, the Burpee family home, which is now designated a National Historic Trust Landmark. George served as president of the American Horticultural Society from 1990 to 1993. He also participated in several international seed relief efforts, providing vegetable seeds to farmers in Rwanda and Iraq. Sources: http://www.burpee.com George Ball Jr. WARMINSTER, Pa.. New York Times (1923-Current file) [New York, N.Y] 21 Mar 1993: E17. ^top Barry, Charles Patrick (1852-1907) Rochester, New York. was the third son of Patrick Barry.  He was educated at the University of Rochester.  He entered the nursery business and held the position of vice-president of the Ellwanger & Barry nursery and the Barry realty companies after their incorporation in 1900. Sources:  http://www.lib.rochester.edu/rbk/ell%26bar.htm ^top Barry, Frederic Gaffney (d. 1961) Rochester, New York. was the second son of Patrick Barry.  He graduated from Harvard in 1900 and joined the Ellwanger & Barry nursery business.  When the nursery closed in 1918, he became the president of the realty company, and presided over the development of the former nursery s land.  He lived in his father s house until his death in 1961. Sources:    http://www.lib.rochester.edu/rbk/ell%26bar.htm ^top Barry, Patrick (1816-1890) Rochester, New York. Barry was born near Belfast, Ireland in 1816 and was a teacher in Ireland, but at 21 years old he went to seek his fortune in America.  He arrived in New York in May 1836 and worked with William Prince and Sons, proprietors of the Linnaean Nursery, Flushing, NY.  There Barry got a solid foundation in American horticulture.  In the summer of 1840 he negotiated a partnership with George Ellwanger in Rochester, NY.  Ellwanger & Barry were the proprietors of the Mount Hope Nurseries.  In 1842 Barry wrote an article on Horticulture in Western New York, in which he criticized the refusal of the judges at the State Agricultural Society Fair of 1842 to award fruit prizes.  In 1844 Barry took the post of editor of the Horticultural Department of the Genesee Farmer and continued there for eight years.  In 1847 Barry journeyed through Europe, visiting all the leading nurserymen and studied their methods for pruning.  Shortly after his return he started writing The Fruit Garden that was published in 1851.  In 1849, Barry gave the annual meeting address to the Genesee Valley Horticultural Society that met at the Monroe County Agricultural Society s fair.   Barry was editor of The Horticulturist for 1853 and 1854.  He was president of the Western New York Horticultural Society for more than thirty years; president of the New York Agricultural Society; president of the Rochester City & Mechanics Savings Bank; Rochester Gas Co.; and Powers Hotel Co.  In 1877 he served as the president of the State Agricultural Society. He died June 23, 1890. Sources:  Annals-1890; URLB; Naylor/RHS; Plants; Woodburn2; Bailey; CHSJ-Apr.1966;  McIntosh; HP; AN; Parks; VanRav2; GF ^top Barry, William Crawford (1847-1916) Rochester, New York son of Patrick Barry who joined his father in the nursery business and in 1868 became a junior partner.   In 1881 he was elected president of the American Nurserymen s Association.  He was the first president of the American Rose Society and was president of the Eastern Nurserymen s Association.  After 1890 he served for many years as president of the Western New York Horticultural Society.  After his father s death in 1890, he became a full partner and president of both the nursery and real estate companies that were incorporated in 1900. Sources:   http://www.lib.rochester.edu/rbk/ell%26bar.htm ^top Belden, James Lockwood Wethersfield, Connecticut Established Wethersfield Seed Gardens in 1820 (or possibly 1811).  Belden sold the company in 1838 to Judge Comstock and his son, William G. Comstock. Sources: Comstock; AN ^top Berckmans, Prosper Julius A. (1829-1910) Augusta, Georgia was born near Brussels, Belgium in 1829.  Spent his boyhood on the estates of his father, Dr. Louis Berckmans, who was a noted horticulturist.  He was educated in France and when he returned home to Belgium in 1847, he spent the next three years working on his father s estates and studying botany at the Botanical Gardens of Brussels.  In 1850 Berckmans came to the United States, and in 1851, Prosper s father, Dr. Berckmans, brought his family and a great collection of plants to a farm in Plainfield, New Jersey.  Prosper moved south in 1857 to establish the Fruitland Nurseries, near Augusta, Georgia by purchasing a half interest in the nurseries of D. Redmond.  The following year he bought the other half interest and became sole owner.  Berckmans imported seeds, cuttings, and plants.  In the later years he grew many different kinds of camellias and plants suited to the Georgia climate.  He became a life member of the American Pomological Society in 1860 and was elected president in 1887.  He founded the Georgia State Horticultural Society in 1876 and was its president until his death in 1910.  In 1883-84 he went to Europe for the U. S. government to collect horticultural exhibits for the New Orleans Exposition of 1884-1885.  He was the editor of Farmer and Gardener for several years.  He retired in 1907. Sources:  APS-1911; Plants; Bailey; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; Slosson; Berckmans   ^top Berger, H. H. New York, New York; branch office  San Francisco, California Established as H. H. Berger & Co. in 1878.   This nursery was one of the first to specialize in imported Japanese plants.  The 1906 catalog gives only the New York location. Sources: CHSJ-July 1966 ^top Blanc, Albert A. (1850-1928) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was born in Belgium in 1850, and came to the United States in the early 1870s.   He began as a cactus dealer and illustrated plant lists with his own woodcuts.  His Hints on Cacti, a combination cultural guide and trade catalog, was published in 1886.  It was the first cactus catalog published in the United States.  He expanded a hobby into the world s largest cactus nursery, and was considered to be the person responsible for starting the cactus craze of the 1890s.  Other dealers were impressed with his illustrations, and by the 1890s he was selling thousands of illustrations to American and European companies. Sources: CP; Mitich; Mitich2; Mitich3 ^top Bliss, Benjamin K. (1818-1899)-was born in Onondaga, New York, on October 4, 1818. New York, New York. He established a seed, bulb, and nursery firm in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1845. The company was eventually renamed B. K. Bliss & Sons when his sons, Samuel B. and Elijah W., became partners. The operation then moved to New York City. The company also published The American Garden, an illustrated quarterly gardening journal. Benjamin died in Boston, Massachusetts, on August 22, 1899. Sources: CHSJ-Apr. 1966; Art Gar; VanRav Bailey, L. H. Cyclopedia of American Agriculture: Farm and Community. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1910. Mickey, T. J. America's Romance with the English Garden. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2013. ^top Bodger, John Los Angeles; El Monte, California 1925-29 established John Bodger & Sons Co., a wholesale flower seed business.  He worked with many annuals including, marigolds, asters, zinnias, and larkspurs. Sources: SW2 ^top Braslan, Charles P. Minneapolis, Minnesota Along with Jesse E. Northrup established a seed business called Northrup, Braslan & Co. in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1884. They believed in the hardiness, earliness, and productivity of northern grown seed, and they saw Minneapolis as a natural distributing point for a vast undeveloped but promising agricultural region.  The polar bear became a symbol of their business, and represented their Polar Brand Seeds.   Their first annual catalog was published in 1885. Sources: SW2 ^top Breck, Charles H. B. (d.1900) Boston, Massachusetts son of Joseph Breck, vice-president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society from 1876-1879, 1882-1900. Sources:  MHS ^top Breck, Joseph (1794-1873) Boston, Massachusetts established his business, Joseph Breck & Company, in 1818.  He acquired the New England Farmer, and later Horticultural Register and Gardens magazine, both edited by Thomas Fessenden.  He also wrote The Flower Garden, a book about flower cultivation and shrubbery.  He was one of the founding members of the American Seed Trade Association and a president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society from 1859-1862.  Breck experimented with different forms of catalogs, for one of his schemes he packaged a collection of seeds targeted at specific markets such as the West Indies.  His 1840 catalog New England Agricultural Warehouse and Seed Store Catalogue was a small book, 84 pages in length.  Long essays on gardening were included with the products.  Breck attempted to use horticulture as an uplifting, educational tool.  He included French plant names, listed standard works on horticulture, used illustrations to improve his readers tastes.  The 1840 catalog featured 72 black-and-white engravings.  Breck s catalog may have been his rural customers only exposure to graphic arts and horticultural literature. Sources:  MHS; Plants; Woodburn2; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; Leighton2; Art Gar; SW1; Hort; CP; H&G; GT ^top Bridgeman, Alfred New York, New York the son of Thomas Bridgeman who carried on the seed business under the name Alfred Bridgeman Seeds. Sources: Bailey; Leighton2 ^top Bridgeman, Thomas (d.1850) New York, New York was born in Berkshire, England and came to America in 1824 and opened a seed store.  In 1829, he published The Young Gardener s Assistant that was later reprinted many times and copyrighted in 1847.  The store was later run by his son Alfred Bridgeman. Sources:  Woodburn2; Bailey; Leighton2 ^top Briggs, Charles Rochester, New York was the proprietor of the Briggs Seed House, Rochester, New York in 1877.  He began as a clerk in the business thirty years before that.  In 1877 he had 20,000 merchants and dealers who sold his seeds.  He had a large payroll with most of his employees being girls who filled orders, made paper bags, then labeled and filled them, and worked the printing presses.  Besides the Rochester Store there was a store in Chicago and a seed farm in Clinton, Iowa. Sources: McIntosh; Parks ^top Briggs, John T Rochester, New York; Chicago, Illinois sometime around 1852 the firm of Rapalje & Briggs split into two different companies, the John T. Briggs New Seed Store and the Genesee Seed Store under the management of John Rapalje & Co.  The John Briggs firm later became known as Briggs & Bros.  The Briggs firm eventually had offices in both Rochester and Chicago.  They offered a yearly catalog and an occasional large floral print.  The floral print they issued in 1872 was of exceptional quality. Sources: NYPA; Parks ^top Brown, Charles and Robert Rochester, New York; Ridgeville, Ontario two brothers who started the Brown Brothers & Company nursery in Rochester, New York.  They purchased a farm on the Niagara peninsula in Ridgeville, Ontario in 1891, and established a nursery there.  By the turn of the century their firm became one of Canada s leading nurseries.  By 1904 the company had 1200 to 1500 men working in Canada alone. Sources: Wilson ^top Buist, Robert (1805-1880) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was born near Edinburgh, Scotland, November 14, 1805.  He was trained at the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens and came to America in August 1828.  He was employed by D. Landreth, and then took employment with Henry Pratt who owned Lemon Hill probably one of the finest gardens in the U.S. at the time.   He formed a partnership with Thomas Hibbert in 1830 in a florist business in Philadelphia.  They imported rare plants and flowers, especially the rose.  After Hibbert s death he began a seed business, along with the nursery and greenhouse business called the Robert Buist Company.  He later turned the seed business over to his son Robert.   Buist was know for his roses and verbena and credited with introducing the poinsettia to the United States.  He was the author of The American Flower-Garden Directory (1832); The Rose Manual (1844); and The Family Kitchen-Gardener (c1847).  He was active with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, treasurer from 1858-1862 and vice-president for twenty-two years.  He died in Philadelphia, July 13, 1880. Sources:  GM-Dec. 1880; MHS; Plants; Woodburn2; Bailey; PHS2; PHS1; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; Leighton2; SW1; GT; Hedrick. ^top Burbank, Luther 1849-1926 main office, San Francisco, California; experiment farms, Santa Rosa; proving grounds, Sebastopol; nurseries, Sonoma and Alameda Counties; seed farms, Santa Clara Valley; spineless cactus nurseries, Santa Rosa and Livermore Valley; warehouse and distributing, Oakland was born in Lancaster, Massachusetts on March 7, 1849.  He was an extraordinary plant breeder. Though he was not a strong student in his early education, he went on to study independently and learn from the recent works of Charles Darwin. At 21 he bought a farm in Lunenberg, Massachusetts and began his 55-year plant breeding career.  He went to California in 1875 after having produced his Burbank potato in 1873 in Lunenburg.  After arriving in Santa Rosa, California, he established his nursery garden, greenhouse, and experimental farms.  He developed over 800 new types of plants including over 113 varieties of  plums and prunes, roses, giant Shasta daisy, and the Fire poppy.  The 1924 catalog claimed they had 65,000 customers world-wide. Burbank was very secretive of his work. He kept no notes and often destroyed unused material at the end of a growing season. For this reason, much of his work cannot be duplicated. He died on April 11, 1926 in Santa Rosa, California.  Burbank was a cousin of W. Atlee Burpee (his mother was a Burpee). Sources:  Burbank; Dreyer; CHSJ-Jul. 1961; CHSJ-Jan. 1968; http://www.burpee.com/fordhook Taylor, J. M. (2014). Visions of loveliness. Athens, OH: Swallow Press. ^top Burpee, David (1893-1980) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Doylestown, Pennsylvania; Lompoc, California; Swedesboro, New Jersey when W. Atlee Burpee died on November 26, 1915, his son David, then 22, dropped out of Cornell University and took over the family business, W. Atlee Burpee & Company.  David was interested in flowers, while his father had been interested in vegetables.  World War I cut off the company s oversees seed supply and caused a food shortage in the United States.  David began a war gardens campaign, that was to later become the Victory gardens campaign in World War II.  These programs were aimed at city people and taught them how to grow food during shortages caused by wartime.  After World War II, the company also sent thousands of pounds of seeds to Allied countries under the Lend-Lease Act.  In the 1930's the company began cross-breeding to produce hybrids that were healthier and more resistant to disease.  The Big Boy tomato was developed during this time, along with the Ambrosia cantaloupe, as well as new kinds of petunias, nasturtiums, and red and gold marigolds.  In the 1940s the company created new forms of flowers by altering their chromosome structure with a chemical called colchicine.  This led to varieties Bright Scarlet and Rosabel snapdragons and Ruffled Jumbo Scarlet zinnia.  In 1954 David Burpee announced his company would pay $10,000 to the first person who could supply seeds that produced a white marigold.  Over the next 20 years, gardeners submitted 8,208 entries, and Burpee spent over $250,000 evaluating the seeds.  In 1975, Mrs. Alice Vonk of Sully, Iowa was announced as the winner.  During the 1960s, David campaigned to make the marigold America s national flower.  In 1970, David Burpee sold his company to General Foods, the first of a series of non-horticultural owners,  for an estimated $10 million dollars, and in 1979 the company passed to ITT.  David Burpee remained as a consultant until his death in 1981.  In 1991 the Burpee company was acquired by George J. Ball, Inc., a diversified horticultural family business. Sources: Kraft; ANBv22; NCAB; Reilly; Raver; Waldron; DVA; Rockwell; Beans; Lowe;  http://www.burpee.com/fordhook   ^top Burpee, W. Atlee (1858-1915) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Doylestown, Pennsylvania; Lompoc California; Swedesboro, New Jersey the W. Atlee Burpee & Company was founded by W. Atlee Burpee in 1876 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.   Atlee was born in 1858 in New Brunswick, New Jersey.  At fourteen years of age, Atlee s hobby was breeding chickens, geese and turkeys.  He corresponded with poultry experts worldwide and wrote scholarly articles in poultry journals.   With a partner, in 1876 the 18 year old Atlee started a mail-order chicken business in the family home with $1,000 loaned to him by his mother.  Poultry farmers from the Northeast knew of his business, and he soon opened a store in Philadelphia, selling not only poultry but also corn seed for poultry feed.  It wasn t long before his customers started requesting cabbage, carrot, cauliflower and cucumber seeds.  In 1878, Burpee dropped his partner and founded W. Atlee Burpee & Company, mainly for garden seeds, but poultry wasn t dropped from the Burpee catalog until the 1940s.   By 1888, the family home, Fordhook Farms, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, was established as an experimental farm to test and evaluate new varieties of vegetables and flowers, and to produce seeds.  Before World War I, Atlee spent many summers traveling through Europe and the United States, visiting farms and searching for the best flowers and vegetables.  Atlee shipped many of the vegetables and flowers he found to Fordhook Farms for testing.  Those plants that survived were bred with healthier types to produce hybrids better suited to the United States.  Fordhook Farms was the first laboratory to research and test seeds in this way.  Fordhook Farms specialized in testing onions, beets, carrots, peas and cabbage.  In 1909, Burpee established Floradale Farms in Lompoc, California, to test sweet peas, and Sunnybrook Farms near Swedesboro, New Jersey tested tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and squashes.  In his travels, Atlee met Asa Palmer, a Pennsylvania farmer who raised beans, and who thought he had one plant that was resistant to cutworms.  Burpee turned this bean plant into what is now known as the Fordhook lima bean, one of the company s most famous items.  Another successful plant was the Golden Bantam sweet corn that the farmer William Chambers of Greenfield, Massachusetts had grown before his death.  A friend of Chambers found some of the sweet corn seeds and sold Burpee seeds of the corn, and in 1902, Golden Bantam was featured in a Burpee catalog.  Before 1900 most people thought that yellow corn was fit only for animals, so in order to change their customers minds, many farmers slipped Golden Bantam corn in with the white corn they were selling.  Within a few years, people in the United States were converted to yellow corn.  Iceberg lettuce was introduced in 1894 and named for its crispness.  A key in Burpee's business was the 1863 free delivery system, that required post offices to deliver mail to residents homes, and in 1896, free delivery was extended to rural areas.  This allowed his catalogs to be delivered directly to people s homes.  Thousands of letters were received annually from Burpee s customers thanking him for his seeds.  Burpee knew that the key to his business was advertising and the catalog was his advertising medium.  In his first year of business, his catalog was 48 pages, but by 1915 he was distributing a million catalogs or 200 pages each. Burpee personally wrote most of the copy of his catalogs.  Burpee set up an advertising department and offered cash prizes for the best advertisements.  This competition is what originated the slogan Burpee Seeds Grow in 1890.  The 1891 catalog was the first to feature engravings made from photographs, and by 1901 this process was done by machines.  Burpee s move to photography changed the whole industry and the hand-drawn illustration in catalogs disappeared.  In another break with tradition, Burpee eliminated cultural information and put in testimonial letters and plant descriptions.   At Atlee s death in 1915, the company had 300 employees, and it was the largest seed company in the world.  At that time the Burpee company distributed over 1 million catalogs a year and received 10,000 orders a day.   Sources:  MHS; Art Gar; GG; Tucker; Kraft; Hort; H&G; SW2; Beans; Lowe; NCAB; Nguyen; http://www.burpee.com/fordhook ^top Chase, Lewis (1830-1911) Rochester, New York was born in Maine, Jan. 22, 1830.  He started in the nursery business in Chase s Mills, Maine in 1857 with his two brothers, Ethan A. and Martin V. B. Chase.  In 1868 he and Ethan moved to Rochester, New York where they organized under the name of Chase Brothers Nursery Company.  He was the president of the firm. Sources:  APS-1913 ^top Childs, John Lewis (1856-1921) Floral Park, New York Childs was born on May 13, 1856.  He acquired a few acres and set up his business as a seedsman and florist at age eighteen, after one year as a florist s helper on Long Island.  He was known internationally for his monthly magazine Mayflower, a magazine of gardening and home adornment.  It appeared from 1885-1906, 23 volumes in all, with a circulation of half a million copies.  He wrote Guide to Lily Culture that had seven editions, the last one was published in 1888.  By 1892 he had several hundred acres with glass houses, seed beds, seed stores, Victorian gardens, and a rail spur, canal, and farm.  He established the village of Floral Park to provide for services and housing for his business.  Eight thousand orders arrived each day from around the world.  By the turn of the century, Childs had set up a seed house in Pasadena, California, and raised geraniums, freesia, and amaryllis bulbs.  Another farm in Suffolk County, New York, was devoted to the wholesale florist business and grew gladioli, cannas, and dahlias.  Many exotic plants were the subjects of his chromolithographs in his catalogs. Sources: HG; CP; Bryan ^top Comstock, William G. Wethersfield, Connecticut Judge Comstock and his son , William G. Comstock bought the firm Wethersfield Seed Gardens from its owner James Lockwood Belden in 1838.  In 1845 Comstock took Henry Ferre as a partner.  Comstock, Ferre & Co. was incorporated in 1853.  This was one of the first houses in the trade to have nationwide distribution, through the frontier-riding of William G. Comstock.  The company focused on vegetable and herb seeds.  In 1871, Stephen F. Willard began working for Comstock as a traveler and delivered seed to general stores in the Northeast using a horse and wagon, and in 1889, he became president of the company. Sources: SW1; Comstock; SW2; AN ^top Conard, Alfred Fellenberg (1835-1906) West Grove, Pennsylvania was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1835.  He descended from German Quakers who were part of William Penn s Colony in 1683.  He worked on his father s farm and learned the nursery business from Thomas M. Harvey.  Conard formed the firm of Conard & Brother, but some time after 1862 he started a nursery business with Charles Dingee under the name Dingee & Conard.  The business had two greenhouses and the establishment was known as the Harmony Grove Nursery.  About 1867 the firm started propagating roses under a new system introduced by Antoine Wintzer.  Conard conceived the idea of disposing of their rose stock through the mail.  Their first catalog offered bedding plants, shrubbery, bulbs, seeds, and roses.  About 1892 Conard separated from Dingee and along with Antoine Wintzer joined with S. Morris Jones in 1897 to become Conard & Jones Co.  The new company continued with the growing and distribution of roses and flowering plants.  As another specialty, they worked on the improvement of the canna.  Conard died on December 15, 1906. Sources:  FlorEx-Dec. 22, 1906; Bailey; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; HP ^top Crosman, Charles F. (1802-1865) Rochester, New York Crosman was born in Vermont in 1802 and moved to New York in 1818 and settled in a Shaker settlement.  Crosman was a peddler of seed grown in a Shaker community in Columbia County, New York.  The Crosman Company was established in 1838.  Crosman then became a partner with Michael Bateham in his seed business.   They developed a seed garden but a year later the partners severed their relations.  Crosman took the garden and Bateham took the seed store.  In November 1842, Bateham sold the store to Crosman.  In 1852, C. F. Crosman was listed a the owner of American Seed Store in Moore s Rural New Yorker.  At his death in 1865, his two sons, George and Charles, took over the business.  By 1880 the Crosman firm had become one of the largest seed houses in the world.  Their original seed plots had expanded to 1,200 acres.  The firm became known as the Crosman Brothers and in 1901 received a gold medal at the Pan-American Exposition. Sources:  Naylor/RHS; NYPA; Parks ^top Crosman, Charles W. Rochester, New York the son of Charles F. Crosman.  He and his brother George took over his father s firm in 1865.  He initiated discussions which led to the founding of the American Seed Trade Association at a meeting in New York City on June 12, 1883. Sources: SW1 ^top Downing, Andrew Jackson (1815-1852) Newburg, New York Downing and his brother Charles Downing operated the Downing Nursery at Newburg, New York.  They specialized mostly in fruits.  Their father was a nurseryman as well.  Andrew Jackson  was America s most influential landscape gardener of the period.  In 1841 he published his Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening when he was twenty-six years old.  It was the first, and still one of the best American books on the subject, and has had a greater influence on American horticulture than any other similar volume.  His book Cottage Residences also appeared in 1841, and in 1845, with his brother Charles, he published simultaneously in London and New York the book Fruits and Fruit Trees of America.  In 1846, he became an editor of The Horticulturist.  In 1850 he visited the great estates of England, and saw for the first time the landscape gardening of Europe.  In 1851 he was chosen to lay out the grounds of the Capitol, the Smithsonian Institution and the White House, in Washington, D. C.,  but he died before the project could be completed.  He died by drowning on July 28, 1852 when the steamer, Henry Clay, caught fire on its voyage to New York City.  He was the first great American practitioner of what was known as the English or natural school of landscape gardening.  He gave inspiration to Frederick Law Olmsted, the next great genius in American landscape gardening. Sources:  Plants; Woodburn2; Bailey; PHS2; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; HG; Elliott; VanRav ^top Downing, Charles (1802-1885) Newburg, New York Brother of Andrew Jackson Downing and operated the Downing Nursery with his brother.  At age thirteen he worked part-time in his father s nursery.  At age twenty he started his own nursery business.  From 1834 until 1839 his brother was a partner in the business.  He was a pomologist, he ran commercial and test orchards for pears, apples, and plums.  Fruits and Fruit Trees of America published by his brother Andrew was largely the work of Charles and he continued working on it and revised it many times.   Sometime after 1850, he sold the nursery to the Saul family, and it was operated under the name of The Highland Nurseries.  A. Saul was in charge, but a brother James Saul represented the firm on the Pacific Coast at Commercial Nurseries in San Francisco.  The Saul family continued to specialize in fruits but listed many ornamental trees and roses. Sources:  MHS; Woodburn2; Bailey; PHS2; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; HP; Hedrick; Plants ^top Dreer, Henry Augustus (1818-1873) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was born in Philadelphia on August 24, 1818.  He was the son of a German immigrant cabinet maker and opened his seed and florist store, Henry A. Dreer, Inc., in 1838.  Dreer saw the need for demonstration and experiment farms.  From 1839-1850, his nursery was on the estate of William Hamilton, known as The Woodlands.   His six small greenhouses were at 35th Street for twenty-three years until 1873 when they were moved to three hundred acres at Riverton, New Jersey.  He was a pioneer in introducing color printing to the trade in his bulb catalog for 1865.  That catalog contained an illustration in six colors, printed from electros reproducing the original wood cuts.  He wrote frequently for The Saturday Evening Post.  He was a member of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and was treasurer from 1862-1873.   He died in Philadelphia, December 22, 1873.   His son William F. Dreer carried on the business in Philadelphia and Riverton, New Jersey.  The business was incorporated in 1892. Sources:  Plants; Bailey; PHS1; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; SW1; GT; Hedrick; FlorEx-Nov. 3, 1906 ^top Dreer, William F. (1849-1918) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Was born in Philadelphia, November 11, 1849.  He carried on the business of his father Henry A. Dreer after his father s death in 1873.  He made numerous trips to foreign countries to study growing methods and to establish relationships with foreign seedhouses.  He was an active member of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, treasurer from 1887-1888 and from 1898-1899.  He had extensive private gardens at his three residences in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, Santa Barbara, California, and Woodstock, Vermont.  He died in Vermont, September 8, 1918. Sources:  Bailey; PHS1 ^top Ellwanger, George (1816-1906) Rochester, New York Ellwanger was born in Gross-Heppach in Wurtemberg, Germany on December 2, 1816.  In 1830, he apprenticed himself for four years to the leading nurseryman and florist in Stuttgart.  In 1835, he set sail for America.  He traveled to the home of relatives in Ohio, but stopped in Rochester.  After spending the summer with his relatives in Ohio, he returned to Rochester to seek employment.  William A. Reynolds and Michael Bateham who owned the Rochester Seed Store and Horticultural Repository hired him in the spring of 1836.  In 1838, Reynolds and Bateman  suffered a huge loss after a failed experiment with mulberry trees.  The nursery was put up for sale, and in January1839, Ellwanger, their manager, offered to lease the nursery and buy the remaining stock.  Ellwanger formed a partnership with Thomas Rogers, a mulberry tree salesman from the east.  By May of 1840 Ellwanger bought out the interests of Rogers and joined with Patrick Barry, a more experienced nurseryman, who had newly arrived from Ireland.  This new establishment was called Mount Hope Nursery.  Their first catalogs were issued in 1843.  In December 1844, Ellwanger went to Europe in order to increase the nursery s stock.  He went to England, France, and Germany and collected buddings and graftings from different nurseries, and stuffed his bags with the catalogs and other publications of the leading horticulturists of the day.  Shortly after his return the nursery issued a second and larger catalog where he had adopted the London Horticultural Society s method of listing plants and describing their features.  The fruit department was their specialty.  Ellwanger married in 1846 and had four sons.  His son William D. was an active member of the firm.  By 1851, the seven original acres in the nursery of 1841 had grown to one hundred acres.  In another five years it had grown to four hundred acres, and by 1871 there were six hundred and fifty acres.  By 1851, there were also nurseries in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio and Toronto.   In 1900, Mount Hope Nursery won a gold medal diploma at the Paris Exhibition for their display of 118 varieties of pears.  Ellwanger died on November 26, 1906.  The Mount Hope Nursery closed in July 1918. Sources:  FlorEx-Dec. 1, 1906; FlorEx-Dec. 8, 1906; URLB; APS-1907; Plants; Woodburn2; Bailey; CHSJ-Apr. 1966;  http://www.lib.rochester.edu/rbk/ell%26bar.htm; McIntosh; HP; NYPA; McKelvey; AN; Parks; VanRav2   ^top Ellwanger, Henry B. (d. 1896) Rochester, New York In 1882, the son of George Ellwanger published the book The Rose. Sources: McKelvey ^top Farquhar, James F. M Boston, Massachusetts was a member of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and in 1912 designed and built an Italian garden in the first floor of the Horticultural Hall.  Brother of John K. M. L. Farquhar. Sources:  MHS ^top Farquhar, John K. M. L. (d.1921) Boston, Massachusetts established R. & J. Farquhar & Co. in 1884.  He was the president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society from 1913-1915.  He gave numerous lectures on his travels around the world.  His brother was James F. M. Farquhar. Sources:  MHS ^top Farquhar, Robert Boston, Massachusetts established R. & J. Farquhar & Co. in 1884. Sources:  MHS ^top Ferry, Dexter Mason (b. 1833) Detroit, Michigan Ferry was born in Lowville, New York on August 8, 1833.  In 1856 he founded the D. M. Ferry & Co., Detroit, Michigan.  The company merged with the California based seed company, C. C. Morse Company in 1930 to become the Ferry-Morse Seed Company.  The Ferry-Morse Seed Company became part of France s Groupe Limagrain, considered in 1990 to be the third largest seed company in the world.  Ladies should cultivate flowers as an invigorating and inspiring out-door occupation.  Many are pining and dying from monotony and depression, who might bury their cares by planting a few seeds... wrote D. M. Ferry in the 1876 Seed Annual.  The vegetable section began with a quote from Plutarch advising exercise through gardening.  Out-door work...must tend to develop that attachment of the citizen to his home, which is one of the strongest safeguard of society against lawlessness and immorality.   Chromolithographs illustrated this catalog as well, and lithographs of the seed farm show different activities, hoeing, weeding cabbage, dinner, and harvesting.  The field workers are almost all women with men supervising.   Ferry invented the commission box, a seed rack for retail display, and was the first to have brightly colored seed packets. Sources:  SW3; CHSJ-Oct. 1961; cat.-022551; Art Gar; AH; HG; Tice; CP; GT; VanRav ^top Field, Henry Ames (1871-1949) Shenandoah, Iowa was born in Page County, Iowa, December 6, 1871.  He attended Western Normal College, Shenandoah, Iowa from 1889 to 1891.  He taught for three winters in a country school and worked part-time as a surveyor in Page County.  It is said that as a five-year old, Henry was inspired by the 1876 Vick s Floral Guide, and gathered seed from his mother s garden and packaged them in homemade envelopes and sold them to his aunt.  At age nine he began selling self-harvested seeds.  He continued this business during his college years and the years spent as a teacher.  In the 1890s, he priced his own garden seed lower than Burpee and sold and distributed them from horseback around Shenandoah, Iowa.  In 1899 he produced a four-page catalog with his own hand press.  In 1907, he founded and incorporated, Henry Field Seed Co. in Shenandoah, Iowa.  He moved into the mail-order business, constructed a seedhouse, and sent out a folksy catalog promoting Seeds that Yield are Sold by Field.   In 1924,  he built a radio station, KFNF, on top of his seedhouse and broadcast country entertainment.  In 1930, the company became known as the Henry Field Co., and in 1938 he retired from active management of the company, although he retained the title of president until his death.  At the time of his death, he was doing $3,000,000 business annually with over a million customers.  He was the editor of Field s Seed Sense and a contributor to horticultural and agricultural publications.  He died in Shenandoah, Iowa, Oct. 17, 1949. Sources: Tucker; NCAB; Birkby http://www.culturalaffairs.org/shsi/library/manuscr.htm   ^top Germain, Eugene Los Angeles, California established Germain s Seed and Plant Company in 1871.  Later the successor was called the Germain Fruit Company.  The firm exported callas, freesias, amaryllis, cannas and other bulbous plants.  In 1884, the firm was exclusively in the seed business.  A 1900 catalog listed tree seeds including unusual species, many succulent plants, as well as flower seeds.  In 1957, the company combined with Aggeler and Musser Seed Company. Sources: CHSJ-Jul. 1968 ^top Gillet, Felix 1835-1908 Grass Valley, California was born in France in 1835 and came to the United States in 1852.  He arrived in California in 1858, and settled in Nevada City in 1859.  He established his Barren Hill Nursery in 1871.  In 1968, this was thought to be the oldest continuously operating nursery in California.  Gillet was interested primarily in deciduous fruit and nut trees.  After the death of Gillet in 1908, his successors offered many ornamentals.  The 1930 catalog offered several conifers that appealed to customers in mountain areas. Sources: CHSJ-Jan. 1968 ^top Gregory, James J. H (1827-1910) Marblehead, Massachusetts was born at Marblehead, Massachusetts on November 7, 1827.  He went to Middlebury College and graduated from Amherst College in 1850.  He began a business of selling high quality seeds  in 1850 in Marblehead, Massachusetts after he sent some winter squash seeds that his father had raised to a farmer who had requested some in New England Farmer.  His business was called the Gregory Seed Business.  He sent Hubbard squash seeds all over the United States.  In 1875 he purchased the Burbank potato that had just been developed by Luther Burbank.  It was Burbank s first success at plant breeding done while he was a gardener in Massachusetts.  Gregory had over 400 acres in seed farms.  He wrote and distributed many treatises on different agricultural subjects, and lectured extensively on agricultural and horticultural topics.  He died on February 20, 1910. Sources:  MHS; Plants; Bailey; CLG ^top Harris, Joseph (d.1892) Rochester, New York came from England where he had received training in experimental farming.  He settled on a farm in the town of Gates, west of Rochester in 1849.  Harris bought the Genesee Farmer from James Vick in 1856 and had a widely popular column called Walks and Talks on the Farm in which he made public the results of the work of his experimental and seed farm.  In December 1865, Harris sold Genesee Farmer to Orange Judd and Company of New York, who merged it with the American Agriculturist, but Harris continued his popular column.  In 1863, Harris bought the 141-acre farm in Gares and named it Moreton Farm.  In 1879, he opened the Harris Seed Co. at Moreton Farm.  He offered a 44-page catalog free of charge.  He sent out 30,000 copies.  In 1880, he built his first seed house, and by 1890 the mail-order business was so profitable that a postal station was established at the farm.  When Harris died in 1892, his son Selah took over the company.  By the end of the 1890s, Moreton Farm was the largest of its kind of seed farm.  When World War I began, Moreton s lack of dependence on European sources for seeds made it one of the top companies in the nation.  When Selah Harris died in 1931, his sister Margaret Harris Sheldon took over the company.  In 1937, the Joseph Harris Company bought the old Vick seed farm.  Joseph Harris, the son of Selah became president of the company in 1949.  In 1976, the Celanese Corporation purchased Moran Seed and in 1978 Harris Seeds, and formed the company called Harris Moran Seed Company based in Hayward, California.  Plant breeding was the company s primary focus.  In 1985, Lafarge Coppee bought Harris Moran Seeds, and at that time it was considered the third largest North American producer of vegetable and flower seed. Sources:  URLB; Naylor/RHS; GG; NYPA; CP; Parks     ^top Harrison, J. J. Painesville, Ohio Jesse Storrs and J. J. Harrison started a nursery in 1853 known as Painesville Nurseries, but the name of the company was Storrs & Harrison Co.  They sold fruit and ornamental trees, grape vines, bulbs, small fruits, roses, shrubs, and hardy plants.  In 1904, 1200 acres were devoted to the nursery business. Sources: AN ^top Henderson, Peter (1822-1890) New York, NY Henderson was born in Scotland in 1822.  He came to America in 1843, and worked under Grant Thorburn and Robert Buist.   Henderson began as a market gardener in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1847.  During the Civil War he moved his floral business to South Bergen.  By 1890 he had five acres covered by glass.  Henderson s contemporaries called him the father of horticulture and ornamental gardening in the United States.  In 1865 he published Gardening for Profit, the first book written on market gardening in the United States.  It sold 100,000 copies.  He followed with Practical Floriculture in 1868.  In 1871 he established a seed company called Peter Henderson & Company.  The company developed vegetables and flowers suited to American conditions.  He began a new era of seed trade merchandising by using a five-color lithograph in his catalog.  His catalog Everything for the Garden featured a white-haired gentleman.  His writing was aimed at teaching good horticultural practices. He recommended gardening as the best therapy for invalids.  He dictated all of his writing for his catalog to a secretary while lying down after work hours.  He personally answered every letter he received.  In the course of 45 years of business, he sent out 175,000 letters, two-thirds of them were written by his own hand. An account of his life was published by his son Alfred Henderson.  He died in Jersey City, New Jersey, on January 17, 1890. Sources:  MHS; Plants; Henderson; Bailey; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; Leighton2; Art Gar; Hort; CP; Bryan; VanRav ^top Hibbert, Thomas Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Was the partner of Robert Buist.  Hibbert operated the first noteworthy florist shop in Philadelphia.  He was known for competing with the Landreths in introducing azaleas.  In 1830, Buist and Hibbert bought M Mahon s nursery.  In 1832 the two partners published the how-to text, American Flower Garden Directory.  Buist carried on the business after Hibbert s death. Sources:  Plants; Woodburn2; PHS2; PHS1; GT; Bailey;  Hedrick. ^top Hill, E. G. Richmond, Indiana In 1928, Hill was awarded the Thomas Roland medal by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for his skill in originating and growing roses. Sources:  MHS ^top Hoopes, Josiah (1832-1904) West Chester, Pennsylvania was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, November 9, 1832.  He had a great interest in botany and in 1853 built a greenhouse on his father s property to propagate a collection of flora of the world.  Demand grew for his plants and he began his nursery business called Cherry Hill Nurseries.  He  was a regular contributor to the New York Tribune and wrote Book on Evergreens.  He died January 16, 1904. Sources: Bailey; Bryan ^top Hubbard, Theodore S. (1843-1906) Fredonia, New York was born in Cameron, New York.  He was an alumnus of Alfred University.  He was a leading grape grower and authority on grapes in the world.  He established the T. S. Hubbard Co. in Fredonia, NY in 1866.  The company was incorporated in 1887.  The company sold grape vines and small fruits.  In 1901 they had over 100 acres planted.  They were the first nursery to make the growing of native American grape vines a specialty.  Their business extended to every state in the union and to foreign countries as well.  He drafted the constitution of the Association of American Nurserymen and was its chief executive twice.  In 1899 he severed his connection with the T. S. Hubbard Co. Sources:  APS-1907 ^top Ilgenfritz, I. E. Monroe, Michigan; St. Clair Shores, Michigan; Detroit, Michigan; Toledo, Ohio came to Michigan from New York and brought fruit tree stock.  In 1947, the Monroe Nursery celebrated its centennial, it was one of Michigan s first large-scale commercial nurseries still operated by the family. Sources: cat.-021707 ^top Jackson, A.E -(Jackson & Perkins) -see entry for Perkins, Charles. ^top Kelsey, Harlan P. Highlands, North Carolina; Linville, North Carolina Kelsey s nursery was first at Highlands and later moved to Linville.  His specialty was native ornamentals of the Southern mountain region.  He introduced into cultivation Rhododendron vaseyi, Rhododendron carolinianum, Galax aphylla, and Robinia kelseyi during the 1870's.  The nursery was called Highlands Nursery, the Kelsey Bros., proprietors. Sources: Slosson; cat.-024074-024076; cat-024097-024102 ^top Landreth, Burnet (1842-1928) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania son of David Landreth, Jr., was the third generation to run the seed house.  He was a partner in the business until it was incorporated in 1904 as the D. Landreth Seed Co., and was the president of the corporation until his death.  He was chosen chief of the Bureau of Agriculture of the U. S. Centennial International Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876.  In 1878, he declined President Hayes offer of Commissioner of Agriculture.  He was the author of Market Garden and Farm Notes (1892), and articles in horticultural journals. Sources: Kellen; NCABv24; Bailey ^top Landreth, Cuthbert Philadelphia, Pennsylvania brother of David Landreth, who established  Landreth & Sons nursery. Sources: PHS1; PHS2; DAB; Hedrick. ^top Landreth, David (1752-?) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Bristol, Pennsylvania; Charleston, South Carolina was born in England in 1752.  He is credited with establishing the first American commercial seed company, D. Landreth & Company.  The brothers, David and Cuthbert, arrived from England in 1784 and began as truck farmers supplying artichokes to French emigres in Pennsylvania.  Their early customers included Washington, Adams, Monroe, and Jefferson.  They began growing flowering shrubs and hothouse exotics in their nursery and greenhouses.  They propagated seeds from the Lewis and Clark expeditions (1803-1806) which brought native shrubs and plants into the commercial trade.  The Landreths introduced the garden tomato in 1820, followed by Landreths Extra Early Pea.  Other introductions were the Mexican zinnia and the Bloomsdale spinach.  In 1824 the firm moved to Bristol, Pennsylvania. Sources:  Plants; Woodburn2; Bailey; HP; HG; CH; CP; CLG; GT; Bryan; Kellen; DAB; Hedrick. ^top Landreth, David, Jr (1802-1880) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Bristol, Pennsylvania made the Landreth seed business the leading seed house in America.   His first business experience was in Charleston, South Carolina where there was a branch house that flourished until it closed in 1862 because of the Civil War.  In 1828, he succeeded his father as proprietor of the seed establishments under the name D. Landreth & Co.  The nurseries were under Thomas Landreth.    David, Jr. was a founder of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and in 1832 published Floral Magazine, America s first horticultural journal.  It featured color lithographs.  In 1835, Commodore Perry took a box of American seeds to give to the Japanese as a gift from the Landreth company.  The Japanese sent back some seeds in return. In 1847, the Landreth nursery was moved to Bloomsdale in Bristol, Pennsylvania.  Bloomsdale became the most complete seed farm in America and an arboretum was also established.  Burnet Landreth, David, Jr. s son,  was involved with international expositions and societies and wrote for horticultural journals.  The Landreths used patriotism to sell seeds.  In one catalog they offered a jewel case of inlaid wood containing twenty packets of flower seeds.  Vegetables were a specialty, with cooking notes included.  Lithographs of vegetables were a major feature of the early catalogs.  By the 1880s the Landreths were commenting on changing American values one issue discussed was that practical horticulture was no longer required in public schools. Sources: Woodburn2; Bailey; PHS2; PHS1; Art Gar; CP; CLG; Kellen; DAB; Hedrick; Wright   ^top Lippincott, Carrie H. Minneapolis, Minnesota Pioneer Seedswoman of America was the title Lippincott chose for herself.  She started a seed business in 1886 out of the necessity of increasing the family income.  By 1896 the business claimed they had received 150,000 orders.  A quote from a contemporary publication said the key to her success is prompt service, best seeds, reasonable prices, beautiful flowers, by a woman.   Most of the lithographs in Lippincott s catalogs portrayed women or children.  Lippincott s approach to marketing through her emphasis on a woman-owned company led to at least two other seed firms in Minneapolis beginning business under women s names.  Their catalogs were also similar in size and illustration.  Lippincott was convinced that men owned these companies.  Her 1899 catalog stated it is a peculiar thing in this day and age that a man should want to masquerade in woman s clothing...I do not advise a life of business for any woman when it can be avoided.  It means self-sacrifice... Sources: CH; CP; ArbNews; cat.-017203 ^top Maule, William Henry Philadelphia, Pennsylvania tried to appeal to the market gardeners farmers who created cooperatives to provide local consumers with their fresh vegetables.  He established William Henry Maule Co.  Maule s catalogs featured farm and field scenes.  In his 1909 catalog was an illustration of a truck farm. Sources: AH; CH ^top Meehan, Thomas (1826-1901) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was born in London, England on March 21, 1826.  His father was Edward Meehan, the head gardener for Col. Francis Vernon Harcurt, Isle of Wight.  Meehan was self-taught and wrote his first paper when he was twelve.  At fifteen he produced his first hybrid fuchsia.  He was elected member of the Royal Wernerian Society of Edinboro when he was still an adolescent.  He became a student at Kew Gardens and came to America after graduation on his twenty-second birthday.  He was hired by Robert Buist, Sr. in Philadelphia; was superintendent of Bartram s Gardens, and later gardener to Caleb Cope.  In 1853, he published his first and only complete book, The American Handbook of Ornamental Trees, a book about the trees in Bartram s garden.  He established Meehan s Nurseries in 1853.  He was editor of the Gardener s Monthly for thirty years beginning in 1859.  In 1891, he founded Meehan s Monthly.  He was appointed State Botanist by the Governor.  He was a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Philosophical Society, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and the Pennsylvania Agricultural Society.  He was the author of Native Flowers and Ferns of the United States.  He was elected to the Common Council of Philadelphia in 1882 and remained a member until his death.  He was a member of the Germantown school board for eighteen years.  He died in Philadelphia on November 19, 1901. Sources:  APS-1901; Plants; Bailey; PHS2; PHS1; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; Leighton2; GT;  Meehan1; Oberle ^top Michell, Henry F. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was a Swiss immigrant who started a retail seed business, Henry F. Michell Co., in an attic on Philadelphia s Market Street in 1890.  His brother, Frederick joined him in 1892 and by 1900 the business had grown prosperous with a five-story facility with seven product departments and a separate four-story warehouse.  In the 1920s, the brothers expanded into the wholesale market.  In the 1950s, Frederick s grandsons, Henry F. Michell, III and Frank Michell, Jr., relocated the headquarters to King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.  The company now offers greenhouse supplies, structures, and equipment.  The company is now owned by Henry F. Michell, III and Henry F. Michell, IV. Sources: GG ^top M Mahon, Bernard [Original entry] (1775-1816) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania M Mahon came from Ireland in 1796 and began to collect and export seeds of native American plants in 1800.  His catalog of 1804 listed seeds of about 1,000 species.  In 1806, he published his book The American Gardener's Calendar, that was for 50 years the standard gardening authority in America.  There were eleven editions of his book by the last edition published in 1857.  A general catalog of garden plants was published at the end of the book. He knew Jefferson and his store became the meeting place of botanists and horticulturists.   M Mahon helped to distribute the seeds collected by the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  M Mahon died on September 16, 1816. [adapted from blog.biodiversitylibrary.org] Bernard M'Mahon (spelled M'Mahon or McMahon) shaped American gardening during its formative years in early 19th century. Although M'Mahon left his mark by creating a successful seed and nursery business and writing an early popular horticultural book specific to American plants, accurate biographical information on him is unreliable. Born in Ireland, he came to America between 1796-1798 for political reasons. Botanist William Darlington recalled meeting him in Dilworthtown, Chester County, "In autumn, I think, of 1799", where many Philadelphians went to escape an outbreak of yellow fever. Although it is speculated he had extensive training in gardening while in Ireland, M'Mahon first worked in the printing business for William Duane and the newspaper, the Aurora, beginning in 1800. A few years later he began working in the seed and nursery business, collecting and exporting seeds of America's wild plants to Europe. At the time, native plants from America were all the rage for European gardeners. He is credited with publishing the first American seed catalog in booklet form in 1804. It is actually more a seed list than what we think of as a seed catalog today. It simply lists plants in alphabetical order under major categories such as "trees and shrubs" and "herbaceous plants." For each plant the scientific and common name is given. No illustrations were included. Printing and publishing in the United States was still very new at this time. Many publishers still sent their works to England to be published and shipped back to the states. In 1806, while operating his business, he published The American gardener's calendar; adapted to the climates and seasons of the United States. Liberty Hyde Bailey, in his Cyclopedia of American Horticulture referenced it with: "He gave America its first great horticultural book." In a sense, it became what we would call a bestseller. The book was popular for 50 years and went through 11 editions, the last published in 1857, long after M'Mahon's death in 1818. It was through The American gardener's calendar that President Thomas Jefferson became acquainted and befriended M'Mahon. Jefferson found the book useful for his gardening and growing food at Monticello. M'Mahon and Jefferson began an exchange of books and seeds that went on for several years. Jefferson asked M'Mahon, along with fellow Philadelphia gardener, William Hamilton, to receive and propagate seeds and roots from plants collected on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, in 1804 to 1806. M'Mahon was a friend to many botanists; for example, Thomas Nuttall named a genus of evergreen shrubs discovered in the western U.S. during the Lewis and Clark expedition to honor him. While the name Mahonia is still used frequently in horticulture to identify these shrubs; scientifically, the Oregon grape holly or mountain holly (Berberis aquifolium) is now in the genus Berberis. In the 11th edition of The American gardener's calendar, Jay J. Smith, who handled the revision, wrote a very personal memoir dedicated to M'Mahon which includes a tribute letter by Darlington. Sources:  Plants; Woodburn2; Bailey; PHS2; PHS1; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; Leighton1; Leighton2; GT; DAB; Oxford; Hedrick.; Sarudy; Wright Everly, Robin. blog post on Bernard M'Mahon. 2015 ^top Morse, C. C. Santa Clara, California pioneer breeder in sweet peas, established the C. C. Morse & Co. in 1877.  The C. C. Morse & Co. was the successor to Cox Seed Co. in San Francisco, California.  Morse s son Lester L. Morse, born in 1870, continued the development of the sweet pea, and he wrote Field Notes on Sweet Peas.   The second edition was published by the C. C. Morse & Co in 1905 .  Frank G. Cuthbertson supervised all the sweet pea work done at Morse & Co. and wrote the descriptions and notes on the list of varieties in the publication.  In April 1906, the San Francisco earthquake and fire destroyed the seed company building with everything in it.  At that time they consolidated their business with the Cox Seed Co. and the Seed House of E. J. Bowen.  They continued all of the departments of the Cox company including the nurseries, retail store, catalog mail business, wholesale department, and commission box department.   The 1909 catalog has extensive photographs of the company offices and farms.  In 1915, the Morse Exhibition garden at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition won the Grand Prize.  By 1917, they had sold their nursery department to the Vallance Nursery owned by the two brothers, John and James Vallance, who had managed the department for a number of years previously.   In 1930, the company was merged with the D. M. Ferry & Co., Detroit, Michigan to become the Ferry-Morse Seed Company.  The Pacific Coast operations were under the direction of Lester L. Morse.  Lester s son Charles C. Morse continued the development of flowers. Sources:  SW3; cat.-022551; cat-012950; cat-016462; cat-015737; cat-016422; CHSJ-Jul. 1961; CHSJ-Oct. 1961; CP http://www.ferry-morse.com/history.htm http://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/speccoll/html/agc.html ^top Munson, Thomas Volney (1843-1913) Denison, Texas was born near Astoria, Illinois on September 26, 1843.  In 1906, the University of Kentucky gave him a Doctor of Science degree.  He established his vineyard business in Denison, Texas.  He was an acknowledged authority on the native wild grapes of North America.  In 1890, he published Bulletin No. 3, Classification and Generic Synopsis of the Wild Grapes of North America for the Agriculture Department.  His book Grape-Culture was his most important horticultural work.  He died on January 21, 1913. Sources:  APS-1913; Bailey ^top Musser, Henry L. Los Angeles, California founded Aggeler and Musser Seed Company in 1896.  At one time the firm listed about one hundred and fifty kinds of shrub and tree seeds, and was a popular source for seeds and shrubs and trees in southern California.  In 1957, it combined with Germain s Seed and Plant Company. Sources:    CHSJ-Jul. 1968 ^top Northrup, Jesse E. Minneapolis, Minnesota In 1884, Jesse Northrup and Charles P. Braslan started the company known as Northrup, Braslan & Co., as a wholesaler and retailer of agricultural and garden seeds.  They believed in the hardiness, earliness, and productivity of northern grown seed, and they saw Minneapolis as a natural distributing point for a vast undeveloped but promising agricultural region.  The polar bear became a symbol of their business, and represented their Polar Brand Seeds.   Their first annual catalog was published in 1885.  In 1887, A. H. Goodwin joined the firm, and it was renamed Northrup, Braslan & Goodwin Co.  By 1889, they had 1,800 acres under contract production.  The company s business increased faster than they had the capability to manage it.  Colonel W. S. King and his son Preston brought in much needed financial support in 1894, but in May 1896 a fire destroyed a company building and the company declared bankruptcy.  Even during the company s most serious financial difficulties, the retail and catalog business showed a profit.  Later in 1896, a new company emerged called Northrup, King & Co.  Jesse Northrup was president, Preston King was treasurer, and Charles C. Massie was secretary.  The company struggled with some remaining debt and a limited supply of seeds, but were able to build a new building on the site of the fire.  The headquarters moved in 1917 to a site where the Great Northern Railway and the Northern Pacific Railway came together.  Most of the long distance shipping was then sent by railway.  Charles C. Massie became president in 1914, after the death of Preston King and the retirement of J. E. Northrup, with Lyndon M. King as vice president.  In 1918, a branch was established in Salt Lake City, Utah to produce alfalfa and clover.  Maurice Keating was put in charge of the Utah branch.  By 1945, the company had a Pacific Coast division in Berkeley, California.  The company bought G. A. Klein Seed Co. of Los Angeles in the early 1940s, acquiring Golf Brand lawn seed.  In 1935, they built a seed cleaning plant in Boise, Idaho, followed by drying plants in Hampton, Iowa, and four locations in Minnesota.  Vegetable breeding intensified during the 1940s and 1950s at the company s research center in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.  Northrup King s board of directors made a public stock offering in the fall of 1968.  The company was purchased in 1976 by Sandoz, Ltd., of Basle, Switzerland. Sources:  Northrup; ArbNews; SW2   ^top Olds, Leavitt L. Madison, Wisconsin L. L. Olds Seed Co. was established in 1888.  Olds was a potato farmer who expanded into a breeder, grower and retailer of potatoes for seed.  The company expanded its business to become a wholesaler and retailer of all farm, garden and turf seeds.  In 1988, the company was sold to Van der Have USA. Sources:  SW2 ^top Park, George Watt (d.1935) LaPark, Pennsylvania, Libonia, Pennsylvania, Greenwood, South Carolina At age 16, Park, raised flowers in a corner of his mother s gardens and sold seeds to friends and neighbors.  The George W. Park Seed Co., Inc. was established in 1868, and that same year he printed an eight-page catalog.  In 1871, Park started the publication The Floral Gazette, a monthly journal of floriculture whose name was later changed to Park s Floral Magazine in 1877.  In November of 1905, 400,296 copies of the magazine were mailed out.  The company began as a wholesaler and retailer of flower and vegetable seeds.  In 1882, Park fulfilled a life-long dream of having a college education.  In that year he enrolled at Michigan State University and graduated four years later with a degree in horticulture.  He traveled across the U.S., Mexico and Europe and during one of his trips he stopped to visit Mary Barratt.  Mary was a South Carolina county home demonstration agent who had written him for advice.  They were married in 1918, and they moved to Dunedin, Florida.  The climate was not good for the seed business, so they moved to Greenwood, South Carolina.  When George died in 1935, his wife Mary ran the business until his son George Barratt took over.  When George B. died in 1967, his brother William John Park ran the business.  William continued until 1990 when he became Chairman of the Board and was succeeded  by his nephew, J. Leonard Park, and niece, Karen Park Jennings.  J. Leonard is CEO and President, and his sister, Karen is Senior Vice-President, and produces the numerous Park catalogs. Sources: GG; CLG; SW2; http://www.parkseed.com/parkfami.htm   ^top Payne, Theodore (d. 1963) Los Angeles, California started working for Eugene Germain in 1896, and became manager of Germain s in 1902.  In 1903, he resigned and established his own nursery specializing in California native plants.  He grew between four and five hundred species of native plants.  He planted many gardens using native plants that were adapted to southern California conditions.  In 1960, about a year before his retirement, friends established a foundation in his honor, the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants.  It offered seeds and native plants in containers.  He died May 6, 1963. Sources: CHSJ-Jul. 1968 ^top Perkins, Charles Newark, New York; Phoenix, Arizona; Medford, Oregon-The business was founded in 1872 when Charles Perkins, with the financial support of his father-in-law, A.E. Jackson, started wholesaling strawberries and grape plants from a farm in Newark, New York.  At some point they began selling roses.  In 1896 the comany hired E. Alvin Miller who began hybridizing roses.  In 1901 the company marketed one of Miller's varieties and called the climber Dorothy Perkins.  This rose was so successful that Jackson & Perkins began to focus on roses as their main product.  They participated in the 1939 New York World's Fair with a display called "A Parade of Modern Roses," which created a huge interest in roses.  Many participants wanted to purchase roses but they didn't want to have to carry them home.  They asked if the roses could be mailed to them.  This started the mail order business that eventually resulted in over 35 million pieces of garden literature mailed every year and over 3 million roses and other plants shipped to customers.  After starting the mail order business, they outgrew their space and headed west, first to Phoenix, Arizona and later in 1966 to the San Joaquin Valley, California when the company was acquired by Harry and David.  The company is now part of the Bear Creek Corporation and their headquarters are in Medford, Oregon with their research center in Somis, California. Sources:  Oehlbeck; AABGA http://www.jacksonandperkins.com   ^top Prince, Benjamin Flushing Landing, New York at the death of William Prince (1725-1802), the Prince Nursery was divided between his two sons, William and Benjamin.  Benjamin retained the original property and named the company The Old American Nursery. Sources: Hedrick ^top Prince, Robert Flushing Landing, New York Linnaean Botanic Garden (William Prince & Sons, Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nurseries)-Founded the Prince Nursery in 1737.  It operated for 130 years, until about 1865.  It was the first major commercial nursery in the United States.  It was responsible for importing plants from Europe and sending American plants abroad.  The nursery was also breeders of fruits and roses, a leader in perfecting growing techniques, and the first to advertise ornamentals in a big way.  It produced most of the grafted apple, pear and cherry trees that could be found in the early Northeastern orchards.  They also trained many of the early nurserymen.  During the Revolutionary War, the British General Lord Howe ordered the protection of the Prince Garden and Nursery.  Over 10,000 grafted cherry trees had to be sold to be used in barrel manufacturing during the war.  After the war the orchard had to be rebuilt. In 1789 President George Washington visited the nursery.  The first know advertisement of the nursery was dated September 21, 1767.   The nursery s earliest catalog was published in 1771 and was a broadside featuring a large selection of fruit trees. In 1827, the nursery contained more than a hundred species of Australian plants, and a year later it had more than 600 kinds of roses. Into the middle of the 19th century, the Prince Nursery was the largest and best American establishment of its kind. Sources:  Plants; GT; Hedrick; Wright   ^top Prince, William (1725-1802) Flushing Landing, New York (William Prince & Sons, Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nurseries) was the second proprietor of the Prince Nursery at Flushing, New York, and the one who is considered to be the true founder of the nursery.  Under William the business grew rapidly until the Revolutionary War.  William was the first to grow pecan trees for sale; in 1772, he planted 30 nuts from which he grew 10 plants (eight of these he sold in England).  Many of the shrubs and flowers from the Lewis and Clark expeditions were sent to the Prince Nursery for propagation and distribution.   In 1828, William Prince published a Treatise on Horticulture.   Before the death of William, the nursery business was taken over by his sons, William and Benjamin.  William called his part of the nursery, the Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nursery, and Benjamin called the original location The Old American Nursery. Sources: Woodburn2; Bailey; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; Leighton1; Art Gar; AH; Hedrick ^top Prince, William (1766-1842) Flushing, New York (Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nursery) was the third proprietor of the Prince Nurseries.  He continued the work of his father in introducing foreign trees and plants, and the creation of new varieties from seed.  The Lombardy poplar was imported by this nursery.  The catalogs from 1815 to 1850 were ranked as among the standard horticultural publications of the U. S.  William was one of the founders of the New York Horticultural Society (1818).  He died on April 9, 1842. Sources:  Plants; Bailey; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; Art Gar; Hedrick ^top Prince, William Robert (1795-1869) Flushing Landing, New York (Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nursery) was born November 6, 1795.  He was the fourth proprietor of his family s nursery.   He was a botanist and plant explorer as well as a nurseryman.  As a young man he went on plant-collecting expeditions in the eastern states, and in 1849 and 1850 he collected plants in California.  He devoted his life to grape culture and the improvement and distribution of native grapes.  William Robert, along with his father, published A Treatise on the Vine (the first good book on viticulture in America) in 1830; A Pomological Manual in 1831 (contained full and accurate descriptions of the known varieties of all hardy tree fruits, except the apple); and Manual of Roses in 1846 (the first good book printed on the rose in America).  He died on March 28, 1869. Sources: Woodburn2; Bailey; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; Art Gar; AN; Hedrick; VanRav ^top Purdy, Carl (1861-1945) Ukiah, California established his nursery in 1879.  He specialized in California natives.  He started collecting native seeds, bulbs and plants in about 1875 when he was only in his teens, for a nurseryman in the eastern United States.  He traveled widely as a collector and was a school teacher for a while.  In 1903 collecting native bulbs was his principal work.  His first catalog was published in 1896. He also did landscaping in the San Francisco Bay area.  He was especially interested in native lilies and collaborated with L. H. Bailey in writing on California bulbs for the Cyclopedia of American Horticulture.  His grandson, Carl Mahurin wrote a biography of Purdy in 1941 for the Journal of the California Horticultural Society.  He died on August 8, 1945 at 84 years.  His children, Mary Purdy Robinson, Mabel Purdy Mahurin, and Elmer C. Purdy, carried on the business with his son as manager starting in 1925.  The business was called Carl Purdy Gardens after his death. Sources:  CHSJ-Oct. 1941; CHSJ-Jul. 1961; CHSJ-Jan. 1968   ^top Pyle, Robert (1877-19151) West Grove, Pennsylvania a nurseryman and authority on roses, was born in London Grove, Pennsylvania, the son of Robert Lewis Pyle, a successful merchant.  He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1897, and was acting superintendent of the College until Oct. 1, 1898 when he went to work for the Conard and Jones Company of West Grove, Pennsylvania.  Conard and Jones were a mail-order nursery and seed business that specialized in own-root roses grown from cuttings and sold while still small.  Pyle began his career by making rose cuttings, but soon was transferred to the office.  When Conard died in 1907, Pyle and his father purchased his interest in the company and took control of the company.  Pyle became president and general manager, and continued in those positions until he died in 1951.  The business grew rapidly after he converted the business to the sale of two-year-old field-grown plants on grafted roots.  These plants brought a higher price and they bloomed the first year in the customer s garden.  By 1910, Pyle had established Star® Roses, a nationally recognized name.  From 1919 to 1924, Pyle was president of the American Rose Society, and from 1924 until 1933 he was executive secretary.  He was also a trustee and vice-president of All-American Rose Selections; trustee and president of the National Association of Plant Patent Owners; a founder of the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboretums, and a member of the Advisory Council of the National Arboretum in Washington, D. C.  He was the president of the American Horticultural Society from 1932 to 1935, and a member of the American Society for Horticultural Science.  In 1910, he wrote a pamphlet, How to Grow Roses, that was later expanded into a book that became the largest-selling rose book of the time and went through sixteen editions.  Pyle traveled extensively looking for new roses, but his most famous introduction was the Peace rose, patented in 1943 and introduced in 1945.  It was the work of the French hybridizer Francis Meilland.  Pyle died in 1951, and in accordance with a prior agreement his share of the business was sold to his associates, Sidney B. Hutton, Sr., and Sidney s two sons. Sources: Hutton; DABsup5 ^top Rawson, Warren W. (1847-1908) Boston, Massachusetts was born in Arlington, Massachusetts, January 23, 1847.  He entered into a partnership with his father in a market gardening business in 1867, and in1872 he bought out the business.   He established W. W. Rawson & Co. in 1884 when he bought out the seed house of Everett & Gleason in Boston.  The business continued at the same location until 1897 with Mr. Gleason remaining with the firm for many years.  In 1893, he had a hundred and twenty thousand square feet and fifteen houses devoted to the growing of lettuce and cucumbers in Arlington, Massachusetts.  He shipped over a hundred barrels of lettuce a week to New York in the month of December of that year.  On March 23, 1906 his establishment was destroyed by fire, but within eight days he had the lower floor open for business.  He was a member of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and was vice-president for 1904, and was Chairman of the Vegetable Committee in 1905.    He died August 9, 1908. Sources:  FlorEx-Nov. 24, 1906; MHS; Bailey ^top Reasoner, Pliny Ward (1863-1888) Oneco, Florida was born in Princeton, Illinois on May 6, 1863.  Reasoner moved to Florida in 1882 and settled near Manatee.  He was joined by his younger brother Egbert N. Reasoner and together they  established the Royal Palm Nurseries under the firm name Reasoner Brothers.  He corresponded with directors of botanic gardens and plant enthusiasts and introduced many tropical and semi-tropical exotics.  He was the horticultural commissioner in charge of the sub-tropical exposition at Jacksonville, Florida, 1887-88.  He was also a commissioner at the Cotton States Centennial Exposition at Atlanta in 1888.  He died of yellow fever September 17, 1888 at the age of 25.  The Reasoner family popularized grafting and distributed many fruit plants (oranges, lemons, mangoes, tamarinds, pineapples and the world s first pink grapefruit).  They also distributed many ornamentals and exotics such as palms, acacias, and crotons throughout Florida. Sources: Bailey; CHSJ- Apr. 1966; Slosson; AN ^top Rice, R. Niles Cambridge, New York started the Jerome B. Rice Seed Co. in 1832. Sources: SW1 ^top Salbach, Carl (1870-1962) Berkeley, California was born on October 1, 1870 near Stockton, California.  He graduated from high school in 1890, and worked on his parents farm until 1895.  He then worked for various typewriter firms in Los Angeles and the San Francisco area.  In 1915, he went to the Panama Pacific International Exposition and saw beautiful dahlias and other plants that inspired him to start growing dahlias as a hobby.  He was a member of the Alameda County Floral Society in Oakland and exhibited his dahlias at their annual flower show.  In 1920, he saw Professor Sydney Mitchell s irises, and later he moved to a home adjoining the Mitchell home.  There he grew dahlias, irises and some gladioli.  He was awarded a medal by the Dahlia Society of California in 1919.  In 1920, he began to issue catalogs, and in 1923 he began to introduce varieties of gladiolus.  He eventually bought Professor Mitchell s irises and introduced his own varieties about 1932-1933.  The Salbach Gardens occupied about four acres.   He died on November 2, 1962. Sources:  CHSJ-Oct. 1950; CHSJ-Jan. 1967 ^top Saul, James Sacramento, California; Davis, California Brother of John Saul.  He worked with A. J. Downing at Downing Nursery in Newburg, New York.  In 1854, he went to California and worked at Commercial Nurseries in Sacramento.  His name appeared on the cover of New Rochelle Nursery for the year 1854, as the agent of this nursery that was near Mission Dolores.  Late in 1854, he went to work for A. P. Smith of Sacramento in his floral department.  He later managed an orchard near the present city of Davis, California. Sources: CHSJ-Apr. 1966 ^top Saul, John (1819-1897) Washington, DC Saul was born in Ireland at Carey s Wood on December 25, 1819.  He went with his parents to East Cowes Castle in 1836 and assisted his father in the gardens until 1841.  In 1843 he went to work at Durdham Down Nurseries and after a year became the manager of the nurseries.  In February 1851 he left for America.  His brother James met him in Philadelphia, and then they went to Newburgh, New York where his brother worked for A. J. Downing.  A. Saul and James Saul were affiliated with the Downing Nursery in Newburg, New York.  John came to Washington on May 5, 1851 to take charge of the improvement of Public Grounds which included The Mall, Smithsonian Grounds, the Capitol and the White House.  He remained with that position until 1853.   He began his seed business in 1852.  He laid out Harewood , the country residence of W. W. Corcoran that later became the Soldiers Home.    In May 1854, he purchased Maple Grove Farm, eighty acres, on Seventh Street Road to use as a nursery.  In 1872, his growing business necessitated purchasing more land, a farm at Brightwood.  He published eight catalogs, offering fruits, evergreens, ornamental trees, shrubs, roses and greenhouse plants.  Saul was also a regular contributor to The Horticulturist, beginning in 1851.  He was the District correspondent for Fruits and Fruit Trees of America.  He was a member of the American Pomological Society and the Society of American Florists.  Saul eventually had twenty greenhouses, and during the busy season employed fifty men.  He died at his nursery on May 11, 1897. Sources:  CHS-Apr. 1966; Plants; Bailey; Slosson; Art Gar; Saul ^top Scheepers, John New York, New York Scheepers traveled for about ten years through the United States as a salesman for a Holland bulb grower, as well as for Belgian and Dutch plant growers.  After building up a considerable and reliable trade in America, he established his own business in 1905.  In June, 1906, he took in a partner and the firm became known as John Scheepers & Company.  He started an agency for packing bulbs and plants in Arnhem, Holland.  He made a specialty of lily of the valley. Sources:  FlorEx-Nov. 10, 1906 ^top Scott, Robert (1818- 1896) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was born in Scotland and worked at Wright & Perry s (later Veitch s) nursery at Chelsea, England.   He was recommended to Richard Buist by Wright & Perry, so in 1844 he became their foreman in charge of the greenhouse department in Philadelphia.  He later established his own business with his sons, Robert Scott & Son.  He specialized in rose culture.  He died on July 23, 1896 at age 78. Sources:  Meehan; MHS ^top Shepherd, Theodosia B (1845-1906) Ventura-by-the-Sea, California Mrs. Shepherd was born in Keosauqua, Iowa.  She married W. E. Shepherd of Oskaloosa, Iowa, on September 9, 1866.  They had four children, a son and three daughters.  The family moved to California for Mrs. Shepherd s health in 1873.  For financial reasons, she began to sell objects she had collected in the California woods, including sea mosses, shells, birds, etc.  In 1881, she sent a package of curiosities to the seedsman Peter Henderson.  He encouraged her to start growing some seeds, because he saw California as a great seed and bulb growing area.  In 1884 Mrs. Shepherd began her career as a professional seed and bulb grower.  In 1892, she had eight acres under cultivation.  Her chief customers were Eastern seedsmen.  Some of her specialties were begonias, Smilax, Calla lilies, Cobaea scandans, Mexican orchids, and cacti.  In 1902, she incorporated her business.  She died on September 6, 1906 at age sixty one. Sources:  FlorEx-Sep. 22, 1906; Bailey; CHSJ-Jul. 1961; Holl; cat.-008830 ^top Sibley, Hiram Rochester, New York; Chicago, Illinois succeeded the Briggs Brothers seedsmen.  Sibley was one of the founders of Western Union.  The 1882 catalog described in detail the new building they had built for their company in Rochester.  It was nine stories and had three elevators.  He also continued the business in Chicago. Sources: NYPA   ^top Stark, James Hart (1792-1874) Louisiana, Missouri was born on July 30, 1792 in Hutchison, Kentucky.  Judge James Stark, as he was known, was the son of Capt. James Stark  from Virginia.  The Starks were originally from Glasgow, Scotland.  Judge Stark was awarded land in Missouri for his military service in the war of 1812.  In 1816, he took scions from the old family orchard in Kentucky and began his nursery, Stark Bro s Nurseries & Orchards Co., in Missouri.  From this stock, on forty-five to fifty acres, was established the first commercial orchard west of the Mississippi.  Other fruits growing wild in this area lead him to introduce new and superior varieties of plum and berries.  His business was responsible for the introduction to the Mississippi Valley and the far West of a large number of the leading varieties of commercial fruits grown in western orchards.  He died in August, 1874.  His descendants carried on the business. Sources:  Plants; Bailey; Slosson; HP; Bryan; AN; Terry ^top Storrs, Jesse Painesville, Ohio Jesse Storrs and J. J. Harrison started a nursery in 1853 known as Painesville Nurseries, but the name of the company was Storrs & Harrison Co.  They sold fruit and ornamental trees, grape vines, bulbs, small fruits, roses, shrubs, and hardy plants.  In 1904, 1200 acres were devoted to the nursery business. Sources: AN ^top Sturtevant, Edmund D. Bordentown, New Jersey, 1881; Los Angeles, California, 1896; Hollywood, California, 1907 established a nursery of aquatic plants in what is now the Hollywood area in 1876. In 1921, the nursery was bought by Harry Johnson who moved it to Paramount, California and renamed it the Johnson Cactus and Water Gardens. Sources: CHSJ-Jul. 1968 ^top Templin, Lewis (d.1899) Calla, Ohio Established L. Templin & Sons in 1860, and incorporated in 1904.  The nurseries propagated fruits, ornamental trees, and vines.  His first catalog was published in 1881.  Templin s three sons took over the company after his death in 1899.  The three sons were R. L. Templin, M. B. Templin, and W. W. Templin.  The 1904 catalog has extensive photographs of the nursery, testing gardens, seed rooms, greenhouse, and offices with reading room for employees. Sources:  cat.-011023; cat-017690 ^top Thorburn, Grant (1773-1863) New York, New York Thorburn was born near Dalkeith, Scotland on February 18, 1773 and was a nailmaker before he came to America at age 21.  Thorburn arrived in New York in 1794.  He sold novelties and hardware in New York City but found that his flower pots sold better with flowers in them.  Thorburn s was probably the first business of importance in America devoted to stock seeds.  Thorburn began selling seeds in 1805.  He began his business by buying out the seeds of George Inglis who agreed to give up the market and grow seeds for Thorburn s business.  In 1808, his store escaped destruction by fire after a soap and candle factory next door to his establishment burned.  His business was prostrated in 1814 due to over extending his capital, but by 1816 he had recovered.  The G. Thorburn & Son s catalog of 1822 was the first to be issued in pamphlet form, and it was the first to include illustrations.  The catalogs of the firm between 1827 and 1844 were destroyed by mice.  He died in New Haven, Connecticut on January 21, 1863.  The company was continued as J. M. Thorburn & Company.  It was incorporated in 1895 with F. W. Bruggerhof as president, having been associated with James M. Thorburn and the company for over fifty years. Sources:  Thorburn; FlorEx-Oct. 13, 1906; Plants; GM-1863; Woodburn2; Bailey; SW1; HG; GT; Bryan; VanRav; Wright ^top Vaughan, John Charles Chicago, Illinois started out selling nursery stock but began selling seeds when his customers started asking for seed.  He opened his first store, called Vaughan s Seed Store, in the loop of Chicago in 1876.  Later the greenhouse trade started asking for horticultural supplies, and the Vaughan Seed Company expanded their business to include those supplies.  Vaughan issued eight different catalogs annually, each one designed for a specific market.  Its Corn and Potato Manual of 1882 addressed its customers in academic terms to satisfy a growing public interest in scientific agriculture. It was filled with dissertations on botany, chemistry, and biblical references to plants.   The company was later headed by Leonard H. Vaughan and then John C. Vaughan II.  In the late 1950s, the company bought the Merion Bluegrass seed market and became one of the dominant figures in the grass seed market.  It was during this time that the company expanded outside of Chicago to Bound Brook, New Jersey.  With the expansion of the business in the 1960s, the company moved to Downers Grove, Illinois.  At that time they discontinued their home garden catalog and concentrated on the commercial market.   In 1972, the company bought the Jacklin Seed Co., Inc. of Dishman, Washington.   The company then became known as the Vaughan-Jacklin Corp.  Many other companies were absorbed into the business in the 1970s. In July 1989, Sandoz Corp. purchased the company, and then Novartis Seeds purchased the Sandoz Corp.   Novartis Seeds is now the world s second largest seed company.  The U.S. headquarters remain in Downers Grove, Illinois.  Today the company operates in three major areas: horticultural plant products, plastic products, and grass seed production and marketing. Sources:  NB; GG; Hort ^top Vick, James (1818-1882) Rochester, New York Vick was born in Portsmouth, England on Nov. 23, 1818.  In 1833, he came to New York City at twelve years of age and learned the printer s trade.  In 1837, he moved with his parents to Rochester, New York where he set type for several newspapers.  He later owned part of a workers journal and helped to found Frederick Douglass s North Star.  In 1849, James Vick was elected corresponding secretary of the Genesee Valley Horticultural Society.  Vick was associated with the Genesee Farmer as a writer and editor from 1849 to 1855 when he became owner and publisher as well.   With Vick as editor, the circulation increased rapidly and became a more elegant publication.  A year later he sold out to Joseph Harris.  On the death of A. J. Downing, James Vick bought The Horticulturist and moved it to Rochester in 1853.  The Horticulturist was published in Rochester in 1853 and 1854 with Patrick Barry as the editor.  It was devoted to horticulture, floriculture, landscape gardening, and rural architecture.  About this time, Vick started to grow flowers and then began sending seeds out by mail to the readers of his publication.  In 1856, Vick started Rural Annual and Horticultural Directory, the first half being a seed catalog and the second half a list of nurserymen.  This was taken over the next year by Joseph Harris who continued it until 1867.  In 1860, Vick entered the seed business. In 1866, he established his seed store on East Avenue, and the site eventually became one of the best known seed-display gardens in the country.   With Vick s expertise as a printer and his knowledge of chromolithography, he began in the 1860s to produce a catalog and later a monthly magazine.  Vick issued his first Floral Guide and Catalogue in 1862.  His Floral Guides provided gardening advice, a forum for complaints, and quality color prints, and eventually reached a circulation of 250,000.  Vick s experience as a journalist helped him to perfect a personal style.  He entertained his readers with anecdotes, published letters he had received, and had a special section for children.  By 1876, the first 46 pages of his catalog were a general gardening magazine with the price list following.  By 1870 his mail was averaging over three thousand letters and over three hundred orders a day.  As many as 150,00 catalogs were sent out each year.  A staff of more than one hundred worked in the office and packing house.  There were over seventy-five acres of seed gardens scattered about the city.  In 1878, Vick started the paper known as Vick s Illustrated Monthly which was published by the Vick Seed Company in Rochester and in Dansville until 1909.  This magazine with numerous illustrations was devoted to floriculture and landscape gardening and was sold by subscription.  Vick printed a set of large prints that were either sold or given as premiums with large orders.  The smaller prints that came in the magazine were completed by rows of young girls following a stencil or guide that was drawn by an artist.  Vick was probably the most successful horticultural seedsman, writer, and merchandiser of his day.  The Vick company continued into the 20th century before being sold to the Burpee Seed Co. Sources:  Naylor/RHS; Appleton; Bailey; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; Art Gar; McIntosh; Hort ; HG; Tice; NYPA; CP; H&G; ANBv22; VanRav; Parks; VanRav2   ^top Vincent, Richard, Jr 1906 White Marsh, Maryland located in White Marsh in 1868 and built his first greenhouse in 1870.  He specialized in vegetables and dahlias, chrysanthemums and geraniums.  His company was R. Vincent, Jr. & Sons, his three sons, Richard A., Thomas A., and John S., were associated with him. Sources:  FlorEx-Sep. 22, 1906 ^top Weber, Carl Christian (d.1872) Nursery, Missouri founder of the Weber Nursery, in Nursery, Missouri,  was an immigrant from Allendorf an der Landsburg in Ziegenhain County of Electoral Hesse-Kassel, Germany.  By March 29, 1834, he was in St. Louis, Missouri where he married Anna Margarethe Mueller.  Weber began farming in 1836 on fifty-two acres. Sources:  MHR ^top Weber, Henry J. (1841-1915) Nursery, Missouri (now called Affton) son of Carl Christian Weber, was born Jonas Heinrich Weber, but abandoned his German name and always went by Henry J. Weber.  Prior to his father s death, he began growing fruit trees for sale on six acres of the family farm.  This was the beginning of H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery.  In his youth, he worked on several St. Louis nurseries, before managing his father s farm.  He married Emelia Christine Sutter on January 31, 1867, and later considered that to be the founding year of the nursery.  The 1870 federal census listed him as a nurseryman.   In 1877, Henry s siblings sold him their parcels of the family farm.  Weber had eight children, all of the six surviving children worked in the nursery, with the four sons becoming their father s partners in the nursery.  The nursery eventually became a large-scale commercial operation.  In 1899, Weber purchased 123 acres of Hardscrabble, the original farm of Ulysses S. Grant.  The firm was incorporated in 1903 as H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery, with Henry as president and his sons officials of the firm.  The firm had displays at the St. Louis World s Fair in 1904.  Their first catalog was published before 1892.  In 1925, a fire destroyed the family home and six other nursery buildings.  From 1935 until 1940, the nursery piled up deficits of more than twenty-five thousand dollars annually.  The nursery closed in 1940, a victim of the Great Depression. Sources:  MHR ^top White, Emma V. Minneapolis, Minnesota published her first catalog in 1896.  She played an active role in the Minnesota Horticultural Society, and was elected president of the Women s Auxiliary in 1903.  White was a competitor of Carrie H. Lippincott. Sources: ArbNews ^top Wilder, Marshall Pinckney (1798-1886) Dorchester, Massachusetts was born in Rindge, New Hampshire on September 22, 1798.  Wilder s father owned a farm and a store and wished him to go to college.  Wilder preferred farming and became a partner in the store with his father at age twenty-one. In 1825, he conducted a wholesale business in West India goods in Boston.  In 1837, he became a partner in the dry goods commission house of Parker, Blanchard and Wilder, and continued working with the firm until it was burned out in the great fire of November 9, 1872.  In 1831, he moved to his estate, Hawthorne Grove, and devoted all his leisure to horticulture.  He was a pre-eminent cultivator of the camellia.  He also had a fine collection of azaleas, and he produced a double California poppy.  In 1839, there was a fire in his greenhouse, only two of his collection of eight hundred camellias were saved, but in 1840 when he gave a tour to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society members, he had over three hundred varieties and over six hundred seedlings.  Wilder was the president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society from 1841-1848.  He exhibited at the Society from 1833 through 1886.  He was President of the Massachusetts Agricultural Club, and the Norfolk Agricultural Society.  He was also President of the Massachusetts Agricultural College for twenty years.  He was President for six years of the United States Agricultural Society.  He died on December 16, 1886. Sources:  MHS; Plants; Bailey; CHSJ-Apr. 1966; HP ^top Willard, Stephen F Wethersfield, Connecticut in 1871, Stephen F. Willard began working for William G. Comstock and Comstock, Ferre & Co. as a traveler and delivered seed to general stores in the Northeast using a horse and wagon.  In 1883, S. F. Willard became one of the founders of the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA), becoming president in 1903, and in 1889, he became president of Comstock, Ferre & Co.  Willard s sons, Edward W. and Richard G., succeeded him after his death.  A history of the company was written by Corinne Willard, the wife of Richard G. Willard in 1980. Sources: Comstock; SW2; AN ^top

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