America Reflects English Horticulture
Garden historian Abigail Lustig has written that horticulture, as a new mode of gardening and botany, was an English invention, but it did not remain confined to Great Britain.36 Nineteenth-century botany and horticulture in Great Britain would also have an impact on America, but not without the involvement of American seed and nursery industries.
Many horticultural developments in Great Britain were reflected on the American continent in the nineteenth century. To pursue his dream of educating others in horticulture, Hovey, seedsman and nurseryman, among others, took part in garden-related practices that reflected what the English had already introduced to the world of gardening.
Horticultural Societies
In 1804, English plant enthusiasts began the Horticultural Society of London, later to become the Royal Horticultural Society. The organization focused on plant science and exploration, and the members encouraged the development of gardens using the newest plants, whether imported from the Americas or from Asia. Members were primarily wealthy businessmen and aristocrats who had an interest in building greenhouses and cultivating exotic plants in the landscape. Exotic plantings were displayed in a range of specialized garden areas such as the American garden, which featured native American plants, and the pinetum, a collection of evergreens. Eventually, the horticultural societies appealed to the middle-class gardener, particularly in their yearly exhibitions of plants, which would attract hundreds of visitors.
The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (1827), the Massachusetts Horticultural Society (1829), and the New York Horticultural Society (1855) came along shortly thereafter and modeled themselves after the Royal Horticultural Society. Like the English society, which was made up of the British landed gentry, at the start wealthy American merchants who were also avid gentleman farmers formed the membership of the horticultural societies.37 Prominent American seedsmen and nurserymen were often officers of these societies, if not founding members, for nineteenth-century nurserymen and seedsmen founded horticultural and pomological socie-ties wherever they had their businesses.38 In Boston, for example, Hovey served as president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society from 1863 to 1866. Boston nurseryman Marshall Wilder and seedsman Joseph Breck also served as president. Local nurserymen William Kenrick and Jacob W. Manning, along with seedsman James J. H. Gregory, were involved as well. Fruit grower Robert Manning, from Salem, was both secretary and editor of the history of the society.
At the laying of the cornerstone for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s new building in 1864, Hovey, in his role as society president, said, “We erect this Temple to foster and extend a taste for the pleasant, useful, and refined art of gardening.”39 Thus, Hovey extended his passion for gardening by presiding over the premier horticultural society in the city as well as erecting a building for future lovers of gardening. Indeed, it was through Hovey’s skills in fund-raising that the new building in Boston, at the corner of Tremont and Montgomery, saw the light of day.
Horticultural societies enabled middle-class gardeners to enjoy gardening in a way only the wealthy could before, particularly in the ability to collect plants and build greenhouses. Although a few people were collecting plants before 1800, the era of serious plant collecting, with an emerging botany as well, did not begin until 1805, with the Horticultural Society of London. Such horticultural societies had as their goal, as Hovey recognized, fostering a passion for gardening, which included bringing unfamiliar plants to a wide audience. As evidence of this broad interest, thousands attended the yearly exhibitions of fruits, flowers, and vegetables sponsored by societies, such as the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which held its first public exhibition (the precursor of the current annual Philadelphia Flower Show) in 1829.
Exhibitions were good for business not only in expanding the market but also in achieving higher visibility. Seed companies and nurseries collected, grew, and sold seeds and plants, especially novelties, to satisfy customer interest. Hovey, for example, grew hundreds of pears, apples, and plums, as well as camellias and chrysanthemums, after he expanded his nursery in 1840.
Parks
Loudon, in an 1833 issue of his garden magazine, defended the importance of parks for the health of all classes of people. He wrote, “The time is just commencing for the embellishments of public parks, and gardens adjoining towns, in which the beau ideal of this description of scenery will be realized, at the expense of all, and for the enjoyment of all.”40 The majority of the population, not just the monarchy and the wealthy, needed outdoor green space. Because Loudon’s ideas on landscape inspired Downing, who in turn was an important influence for Frederick Law Olmsted, America’s foremost park builder, it is no surprise that Central Park demonstrates the influence of the English view of the picturesque landscape.
Loudon considered the garden to be an agent of social change. He wanted green space or parks, especially in the cities, where people could enjoy fresh air. Many of his readers agreed. In London, Hyde Park and St. James Park were initially intended for wealthy aristocrats. In 1835, Regent’s Park became the first important city park designed for public use. Regent’s Park had a lasting and beneficial influence on park designers through the rest of the century and beyond.41 In 1843, Joseph Paxton built Birkenhead Park, the first publicly owned park in Britain.
The American seedsman James Vick, in 1881, included in his monthly magazine an illustration of St. James Park in London (fig. 1.1). He wrote, “The view here given in St. James Park, London, is of a very different kind, and no admirer of nature would hesitate to ascribe to it far greater merit as a pleasing work of art. What is meant as the natural style of landscape gardening is here made evident much more forcibly than is possible by words.”
Fig. 1.1 A view of St. James Par in London.
America would also build parks. Central Park, serving as a model in its use as public green space, was eventually reflected in similar designs around the country, often with the Olmsted firm hired as the designer. In 1888, the Mount Hope Nurseries, the premier nursery in the country owned by Ellwanger and Barry, in Rochester, New York, gave the city twenty acres not far from the nursery. That gift later became Mount Hope Park, which Olmsted also designed.
Rural Cemeteries
In Paris in 1804, Père Lachaise Cemetery had become an international model of the rural cemetery, inspiring the creation of garden cemeteries abroad.42 Across the channel, in London, cemeteries had become a problem as the city’s population increased dramatically in the nineteenth century. The amount of space available for burying the dead was diminishing in large cities, both in America and in England, creating the threat of health problems, including the fear of miasmas, for the urban residents. But more than fear of disease prompted calls for a new type of cemetery; aesthetic appreciation also played a role. Loudon, for example, proposed in his magazine a parklike cemetery with trees and shrubs in an extensive landscape that would ensure a natural, picturesque view of nature and also give city dwellers a chance to enjoy a Sunday stroll along the cemetery’s winding paths and grassy hills, dotted with stately trees. England’s first suburban, parklike cemetery in London was Kensal Green Cemetery, laid out in 1832.
At about the same time, Boston joined the movement toward the rural cemetery, a newly emerging style of burial ground. In 1831, with the support of the leadership of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Mount Auburn Cemetery was built in Cambridge in the manner of the rural cemetery of Europe. Hovey referred to Mount Auburn as “the sacred garden of the dead.”43 Later, in 1848, Boston’s Forest Hills Cemetery was also built, as an expression of the best style of landscape or picturesque gardening.
Vick encouraged the rural cemetery, with its lawn, trees, and shrubs. Figures 1.2 and 1.3 show illustrations from his magazine. He wrote in 1878, “Although the laying out and general treatment [of a rural cemetery] should be as for a gentleman’s ground or park, still the Cemetery may and must have a character of its own, not forced or artificial, or severe, but natural and graceful. This character can be expressed in no way so well as by judicious planting.”44 He thus encouraged the use of lawn, trees, and shrubs in a cemetery, much in the tradition