The large-leaved kōwhai (Sophora tetraptera) is native to the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand, where it is widespread and common. While it grows naturally only in Aotearoa, it has been cultivated extensively outside of this range, including as one of a number of New Zealand plants historically introduced into English gardens.[1]

Natural history literature provides a record of such introductions, with many authors remarking on the suitability of Sophora tetraptera—often referring to it under the synonym Edwardsia grandiflora—to the English climate. For example George Loddiges, within his The Botanical Cabinet (1826), remarked that it was “sufficiently hardy to bear our climate, planted against a wall; in very severe frost, a mat should be hung over it.”[2] Two decades later, British writer and botanical authority Jane Wells Webb Loudon included the plant in her The Ladies’ Flower-Garden of Ornamental Greenhouse Plants (1848), where she noted that the original plant could still be found growing in Chelsea Garden in 1848.[3]

Sophora tetraptera, under the synonym Edwardsia grandiflora. Plate 1162. The Botanical Cabinet. v. 12 (1826). Art by George Cooke. Contributed in BHL from the Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library.

Loddiges’ and Loudon’s references are just two of many sources related to the history of Sophora tetraptera that Mark Laird (Professor, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto) identified thanks to the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) whilst conducting research for a prospective book. One of the book’s chapters explores a variety of New Zealand plants introduced into English gardens from the 1770s to 1840s, in the context of both Kew’s colonial collecting and Māori heritage. BHL was an invaluable resource for this research—especially during the COVID-19 related lockdowns of 2020.

“I am a huge fan of BHL, and my admiration increases every year,” lauds Laird. “Last year, under Covid, I discovered I could research a large topic through online access to the BHL. The search engine allowed me to find all the collected references to many plant species, including illustrations of those species.”

Mark Laird (Professor, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto). Image courtesy of Mark Laird.

Laird’s expertise in historic landscape architecture is rooted in four decades of research. Over his career, he’s held fellowships at Chelsea Physic Garden, London, and Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC, and, prior to his appointment at the University of Toronto, was a Senior Lecturer in the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University for fifteen years. Laird has also authored many publications on historic landscape gardening.

Dust jacket for A Natural History of English Gardening (2015) by Mark Laird. Laird sourced many of the illustrations used within the publication from the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). Image courtesy of Mark Laird.

It was whilst working on his most recent publication, A Natural History of English Gardening (2015), that Laird first discovered BHL. Within the work, which was awarded the 2019 Elisabeth Blair MacDougall Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians, Laird draws on historic documents to help chronicle and illustrate the history of early modern gardening and its cultural and scientific intersections. Jacqueline Dearborn (née Ford), then a Digital Projects Librarian at Harvard Botany Libraries, introduced Laird to BHL, who made enthusiastic use of the Library as a resource for many of the illustrations included in his Natural History.

“When sourcing images for my publications twenty-five years ago, many institutions were charging exorbitant reproduction fees,” recalls Laird. “It was a game changer to find that a good number of those institutions have now made their collections accessible online with a simple cost-free download of a High Resolution Image. BHL, as part of that shift in ‘intellectual commons,’ has changed the game for me.”

The African Land-Tortoise (Testudo graeca) by George Edwards from his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds, v.4 (1751). Contributed in BHL from National Library Singapore. Edwards’ illustration appears within Laird’s A Natural History of English Gardening (2015), where he shares that naturalist George White likened his aunt’s tortoise, Timothy—of the same species as Edwards’ Testudo graeca, to “a snail with a shell on its back.” White’s work represents a major theme in Laird’s Natural History.

BHL is now Laird’s go-to resource for natural history literature, particularly when it comes to accessing high quality illustrations. While he appreciates the access BHL provides, he does hope to see the Library implement a more streamlined high resolution image download process in the future, as the current method involves multiple steps.

Laird isn’t alone in his love of BHL’s illustration collections, as evidenced by the popularity of the BHL Flickr, which provides access to over a quarter of a million images from the Library. As BHL further develops its tools and services, staff will continue to explore ways to improve access to and features around scientific artworks.

As for Laird, BHL has opened up a whole new world of possibilities when it comes to online research, and he intends to make the most of these opportunities. “This summer, I expect to continue ‘remote’ research thanks to BHL, which is a game-changer in how a scholar can work from home and at any hour of the day,” affirms Laird.

As researchers continue to adapt to and evolve within increasingly dispersed, asynchronous working environments, BHL will be there to support them wherever and whenever their work takes them.

References

This post originally published on the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives’ blog, Unbound.

A garden is a place to rest, relax, rejuvenate. It also provides an opportunity to learn about nature. Staff at Smithsonian Libraries and Archives are also learning and developing new skills. Some of these new skills are related to digitization and accessibility of biodiversity literature.

During these months of telework, I am assisting the Digital Library and Digitization Department to enhance page-level and image-level access to previously digitized books for the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). This involves improving page-level metadata for items in BHL, uploading full-page illustrations to the BHL Flickr, and tagging the images in Flickr with species’ common and scientific names. These digitized books include a variety of content: plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, crustaceans, insects, and so much more. In the course of this work, I have the opportunity to view lovely illustrations. Recently a horticultural catalog caught my attention. The item is titled Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden (1878) by James Vick.

James Vick, Rochester, NY. Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden (1878), title page. Available online in the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

James Vick was born in England and arrived in New York City at a young age. There, he learned the printer’s trade. He later moved to Rochester, New York. In Rochester, he set type for several newspapers and went on to serve as writer, editor, owner, or publisher of various publications. In 1862, he issued the first Floral Guide and Catalogue. Due to his past experience in the printer and journalist fields, he created a personal style offering gardening advice, anecdotes, correspondence, a complaint section, a children’s section, and color prints. James Vick also began a seed store which later became a well-known seed-display garden. After his death, the company continued into the 20th Century until it was sold to Burpee Seed Co.

James Vick, Rochester, NY. Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden (1878), page preceding page 99, Perennials including (1) Aquilegia, (2) Perennial Pea, (3) Digitalis (Fox Glove), (4) Double Pink, (5) Perennial Larkspur, (6) Campanula (Canterbury Bell), (7) Sweet William, (8) Picotee, (9) Pentstemon. Available online in the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

This particular item, Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden (1878) by James Vick, is filled with gardening advice, botanical descriptions, and many illustrations. It seems to speak directly to the reader with a conversational tone and focus on learning. As it states on page 5,

“The study of Agriculture and Horticulture has engaged the attention of the wisest from the earliest ages, and yet what wonderful discoveries and improvements have we witnessed in our own day; and we are still learners.”

James Vick, Rochester, NY. Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden (1878), page preceding page 109, Tender Bulbs including (1) Tritoma uvaria, (2) Gladioli, (3) Tuberose, (4) Dahlia, (5) Tigridia. Available online in the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

The catalog includes practical suggestions for selecting seeds, preparing soil, and planting gardens. On the subject of garden design, it suggests keeping the future in mind. When planting trees, it emphasizes the awareness of knowing the size, form, and habits of the full-grown tree as opposed to only thinking of its small size when planted. For those with little outdoor space, there are ideas for creating balcony gardens and window boxes.

James Vick, Rochester, NY. Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden (1878), page 20, Entrance Court and Balcony Garden. Available online in the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Another section focuses on floral decorations, such as incorporating greenery and flowers into decorations. This might include covering letters with greenery to form welcoming words for a guest, adorning a table with a floral centerpiece, decorating a room with garlands, or creating bouquets and button-hole flowers.

Let’s take a closer look at one of these floral decorations, forming and covering letters with greenery and flowers. Perhaps, someone wanted to welcome a guest by displaying a “Welcome” sign or, as in the example below, decorate the words, “Peace on Earth.” As the catalog explains, the first step was to determine the height of all letters. Then, the width of each letter was determined proportional to its height. For example, if six inches was chosen for the height of all upper-case letters, the proportional width for “P” would be four inches, “E” three and a half inches, “A” four and a half inches, and so on, as detailed in the explanation shown in the image below. Once the letters were outlined on heavy straw board, each letter was cut out and dark thread was used to fasten small branches of evergreens or dry moss to the letters. Finally as a finishing touch, berries or everlasting flowers were added to brighten the decoration, as detailed below.

James Vick, Rochester, NY. Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden (1878), page 31, Forming Letters for Floral Decorations. Available online in the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Another floral decoration is the button-hole flower or bouquet. The button-hole flower was simply that, a single flower with a “pretty, sweet-scented leaf” positioned behind it. Thread or string was used to attach the two together (below, bottom right), and then it was inserted into the bouquet holder which was already filled with water. To fasten the button-hole flower to clothing or hair, a pin was attached to the bouquet holder.

On the other hand, the button-hole bouquet was composed of “a few very fine flowers” (below, bottom left). Once the flowers were nicely arranged, the stems were covered with damp moss or cotton and then tinfoil. The button-hole bouquet was inserted into the bouquet holder or attached directly to clothing with a pin.

James Vick, Rochester, NY. Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden (1878), page 36, English Holly, Winter Berry (Ilex verticillata), Button-hole Bouquet, and Button-hole Flower. Available online in the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Almost every page of Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden (1878) includes an illustration. With its conversational style and focus on learning, it encourages readers to try their hand at something new. This might be designing their own garden, planting a small garden in a window box, placing vases or ornamentation around the garden, or creating a floral decoration for a party. For reference purposes, it includes a handy “Botanical Glossary” and guide to “Pronouncing Vocabulary of Botanical Names.”

Towards the end, there are many pages illustrating and describing specific plants. A page focusing on “Classification and Names of Flowers” assists with understanding the divisions of plants as described in this catalog. These divisions include Annuals, Perennials, Greenhouse, Bulbs and Plants, and Holland Bulbs. There is also a section devoted to Vegetables. Detailed information for specific plants includes such things as descriptions, origin, and tips for planting. Every so often, the reader might stumble across a full-page illustration, like the Annuals shown below. Perhaps an illustration such as this might have inspired a bouquet or floral decoration to brighten a room for a holiday or special occasion.

James Vick, Rochester, NY. Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden (1878), page preceding page 55, Annuals including (1) Ten-Weeks Stock, (2) Phlox drummondii, (3) Double Portulaca, (4) Balsam, (5) Nemophila, (6) Japan Cockscomb, (7) Pansy, (8) Striped Petunia. Available online in the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden (1878) by James Vick is located in the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History. A digitized version is available on the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and a Flickr album of its full-page illustrations is available on the BHL Flickr. For more information about James Vick, take a look at this BHL Blog post.

Other seed catalogs by James Vick’s Sons are located in a horticultural collection within the Trade Literature Collection at the National Museum of American History Library. For more information on one of these catalogs, take a look at this post about Vick’s Garden and Floral Guide (1898) by James Vick’s Sons.

Reference

“Vick, James.” Biographies of American Seedsmen & Nurserymen, compiled by Marca L. Woodhams, Librarian, Horticulture Branch Library, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, December 1999. Accessed January 8, 2021. https://www.sil.si.edu/SILPublications/seeds/bios.html#Vick,%20James

Charles Lathrop Pack, President, U.S. National War Garden Commission. Source: https://loc.gov/pictures/resource/hec.08264/.

Charles Lathrop Pack (May 7, 1857 – June 14, 1937) was a forestry expert and third-generation businessman. Both his father, George Willis Pack, and grandfather, George Pack, Jr., were in the forestry business. Charles continued this successful forestry dynasty by investing in the timber business as well as banking and real estate. By the time World War I started in Europe, he was a multi-millionaire and was named one of the five wealthiest men in America.

War Memorial Committee. Source: https://loc.gov/pictures/resource/npcc.01780/.

In addition to being an outstanding businessman, Charles Pack was keen about public education and wrote several instructional books and manual. During World War I, he was eager to promote the importance of self-sustainability of food supplies in the United States and went on to become the President of the U.S. National War Garden Commission.

Pack was a principal organizer of the Victory Garden movement. Victory gardens, war gardens, or, as they were sometimes called, “food gardens for defense,” are gardens meant to be supplement and even improve upon the food supply in times of shortage and rationing due to war, providing a variety of home-grown vegetables, fruits, and herbs. Not limited to typical farming areas or countryside, Victory Gardens were planted in urban areas as well. They sprang up at private homes and in public parks and allotments in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Germany during World War I and again in World War II.

Charles Pack helped to promote the understanding that the war efforts were not just frontline battles, but that it is crucial to strengthen the home front of the country by producing healthy food to feed the nation — a concept that has endured into the present.

Pack, Charles Lathrop. Victory Gardens Feed the Hungry. c1919. Contributed in BHL from The Library of Congress.

The highlighted book, Victory gardens feed the hungry: the needs of peace demand the increased production of food in America’s victory gardens, is one of the leading monographs in the campaign for the Victory Garden program. In it, Pack also talks about the unfortunate conditions in some European countries (Ex. Belgium and France) due to the ongoing war and the need for Americans to come to their aid by providing seeds for food products and trees.

American seeds to reforest France and Great Britain. Source: https://loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3c33281/.

A statement at the bottom of the cover page of Victory gardens feed the hungry sums up his philosophy: “The Seeds of Victory Insure the Fruits of Peace.”

If you are in Washington, please visit the Library of Congress and see the “Victory Garden” at the side of the James Madison Building on First Street between C Street and Independence Ave.

Referenced Works

Victory gardens feed the hungry: the needs of peace demand the increased production of food in America’s victory gardens. By Pack, Charles Lathrop, 1857-1937 National war garden commission. Washington: National War Garden Commission, 1919. Holding Institution: Library of Congress. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.41724

The school book of forestry, By Pack, Charles Lathrop, Washington, D.C., The American Tree Association [1922]. Holding Institution: Library of Congress. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.49097.

Portrait engraving of the Duchess of Beaufort by Joseph Nutting, after Robert Walker, circa 1690-1722 (image from the National Portrait Gallery, London, via Wikimedia Commons)

Prominent botanist and cataloger of gardens, William Sherard (1659-1728), was hired by an aristocrat to tutor her grandson in botany for “hee loving my diversion so well.” This was Mary Somerset, the first Duchess of Beaufort (1630-1715), an accomplished gardener and botanist in her own right. She sought solace in “natural learning” and tending plants, some cultivated in what she referred to as her “infirmary.” As detailed in landscape historian and conservator Mark Laird’s splendid A Natural History of English Gardening (2015), her gardening activities were a refuge from bouts of depression. She remarked in a letter of her cataloging: “When I get into storys of plants I know not how to get out.”  Laird’s chapter on Mary Somerset, and other recent scholarly investigations, examine her work and help elevate her role in the history of science. Rather than simply a diversion from melancholia, she was dedicated in her studies, blossoming late in her life.

The English noblewoman was born Mary Capel and is also known by the name from her first marriage, Mary Seymour, Lady Beauchamp. She gave birth to nine children and oversaw, with an exacting eye, two estates—Badminton House in Gloucestershire and Beaufort House in London with their famous gardens. Mary Somerset began intensely collecting and cultivating plants in the 1680s. In widowhood, beginning in 1700, it became even more of a consuming passion. Somerset’s specimens, both exotic and domestic, were featured in her and other important gardens.

The Capel (also Capell) Family by Cornelius Johnson, circa 1640 (photo: National Portrait Gallery, London; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/the-capel-family-156922). Mary Capell, later the Duchess of Beaufort, is to the far right of this affectionate portrayal. The background landscape provides a glimpse of the family’s Italianate gardens of Hadham Hall in Hertfordshire, where Mary Capel grew up.

Everhard Kick, Polygala Blue Convolvulvus, Badminton florilegium (image from Wikimedia Commons)

The herbarium Mary Somerset compiled to record her efforts grew to twelve volumes containing her dried plant specimens. She bequeathed this significant work to a great friend, the family physician and neighbor in Chelsea, Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753), who in turn donated it to the British Museum. The work now is in the Botany Library of the Natural History Museum in London. Another manuscript of her flora is preserved in the paintings of Everhard Kick (also known as Everard Kickius), a Dutch artist, and Daniel Frankcom. They composed a two-volume florilegium (1703-5) in sixty-eight folios of her prized exotics and occasional favored native plants. This catalog remains at Badminton House. These were private undertakings, a record of her individual mind and accomplishments. Apart from these bound works and manuscript collections of letters and records, there are other sources to trace this remarkable woman’s pursuits and how she was viewed by contemporaries.

In the early modern period, plant collecting relied on an informal scientific network—a circle of botanists, nurserymen, gardeners, apothecaries, physicians, and explorers—for information. Although excluded from the culture of the coffeehouse and other intellectual clubs and the Royal Society, Mary Somerset was an active participant in the exchange of botanical knowledge. She was not just a patron but an influential gardener whose analyses of plants were taken seriously by many contemporary scientists who were her correspondents and mutual suppliers of seeds, including John Ray, Jacob Bobart, Samuel Doody, Robert Southwell, George London, and Richard Bradley. Preserved correspondence reveal her contributions, as do mentions of her in important publications of the time.

Explorer, physician, collector, and long-serving President of the Royal Society, Hans Sloane, in his Preface to the first volume of A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christohers and Jamaica (1707) acknowledges the value of Somerset’s active role in his colonial plant trade. He wrote:

“The Plants themselves have been likewise brought over, planted, and throve very well at Moyra, in Ireland, by the Direction of Sir Arthur Rawdon; as also by the Order of the Right Reverend Dr. Henry Compton, Bishop of London, at Fulham; at Chelsea by Mr. Doudy; and Enfield by the Reverend Dr. Robert Uvedale; and in the Botanic Gardens of Amsterdam, Leyden, Leipsick, Upsal, &c. but especially at Badminton in Gloucester-Shire, where they are not only rais’d some few handfuls high, but come to Perfection, flower and produce their ripe Fruits, even to my Admiration; and that, by the Direction of her Grace the Duchess of Beaufort, who at her leisure Hours, from her more serious Affairs, has taken pleasure to command the raising of Plants in her Garden.”

Mary Somerset received seeds from all over the world, including the Cape of Good Hope, Sri Lanka, Japan, and the West Indies, and tended them with great care. She was one of the early adopters of the late 17^th-century innovation, the “tropical stove” or hothouse, to propagate plants. At a time when women, if employed in aristocratic gardens at all, tended to be low-paid weeders, the converted greenhouse at Badminton was presided over by a female assistant, known only as Mary or Martha.

Beaufort House in London had greenhouses as well as expansive gardens. This home of Mary Somerset, and that of Sloane, were nearby to the Chelsea Physic Garden, founded for the promotion of medicinal botany in 1673 by the Society of Apothecaries. There was a mutual trading of specimens and seeds with the four-acre physic garden.

Lycium afrum, one of the plants nurtured in Gloucestershire and Chelsea that Mary Somerset is credited with introducing. Illustration from: Plantarum indigenarum et exoticarum icones ad vivum coloratae. Jarhg. 3 (1790). Contributed in BHL from Harvard University Botany Libraries.

Among the plants nurtured in Gloucestershire and Chelsea that Mary Somerset is credited with introducing were Globe amaranth (native to Asia; in William Townsend Aiton, volume 2, Hortus Kewensis), Comptonia asplenifolia (native to North America; in Encyclopaedia Londinensis 1810), Canarina campanula, Pinus strobus L. (White pine, native to North America), Lycium afrum, and Iva frutescens (John Claudius Loudon, Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, 1838; Philip Miller, The Gardener’s and Botanist’s Dictionary, 1807; and Hortus Collinsonianus, 1843). But she also grew florists’ flowers, such as carnations, nasturtiums, tulips, and auriculas as well as evergreens and oranges, most often in dedicated sections of her vast gardens, and, of course, to adorn her great homes.

Passiflora caerula. The blue passion flower is another cultivar of the Duchess of Beaufort (see Loudon’s Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum).

William Sherard helped instruct Mary Somerset in taxonomic methods of documenting her plants. The botanist had studied with Joseph Pitton de Tournefort in Paris and Paul Hermann in Leiden and helped edit a revision of Caspar Bauhin’s Pinax Theatri Botanici. The requests from numerous scientists and botanical authorities for the tending of seeds at both Badminton and her London gardens was not simply to provide the necessary environment for nurturing specimens, but for her ability to cultivate these exotics and to compare them with native plants, providing details on what thrived and what did not. That is, her observations, descriptions and opinions were respected and sought.

Another correspondent of Somerset’s was botanist James Petiver (1663 or 1664-1718). He wrote a series for the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions (1711-14), “Account of Rare Plants Lately Observed in Several Curious Gardens about London and particularly the Company of Apothecaries’ Physic Garden at Chelsea.” Included in this description is Somerset’s neighboring garden in London. Nothing remains of that estate except perhaps some of her specimens that may have ended up in the Physic Garden. Beaufort House at Cheyne Walk was purchased in 1737 by Sloane. After being left vacant for twenty years, he had the home and gardens demolished in 1740.

Philip Miller (1691-1771), who had a distinguished career at the Chelsea Physic Garden, in the Catalogus Plantarum of 1730 notes Somerset’s contributions. The gardener records names of some of the “many learned and curious persons, nobility and gentry” who sought to transform “our former poorly furnish’d gardens.” Included was:

“Her Grace the Dutchess of Beaufort did also collect a numerous quantity of rare Plants into those famous Gardens of Badmington, where she preserved and maintained them with great Care in wonderful Beauty for many years; but as this Collection consisted chiefly of our most tender Exotick Plants, so we shall have Occasion to mention that Noble Person when we come to treat those Plants in another Place.”

Engraving of the Chelsea Physic Garden, from the Surrey Bank (from Wellcome Images (no. L0003897) via Wikimedia Commons)

It is notable that Mary Somerset, in contrast to many of her fellow botanists, was not just interested in dried specimens and their identification but thoroughly engaged in horticulture—cultivating plants to thrive and creating gardens that were famous in their time. As Stephen Switzer noted in his 1718 Ichnographia Rustica, or, The Nobleman, Gentleman, and Gardener’s Recreation, “how much of her time she virtuously and busily employed in the garden.”

Colored engraving of Beaufort House, occupying part of the former estate of Sir Thomas More, in Chelsea, 1708, by Johannes Kip. From Britannia Illustrata (image from the Museum of London) the bird eye’s view shows the surrounding gardens, orchards and greenhouses.

A more complete survey of printed acknowledgements and identifications of plants which Mary Somerset helped introduce will expand the portrait of a complex woman who sought relief from depression in gardening and horticultural and botanical studies. There is the challenging task of pinpointing more of her plants by comparing the portrayals in the Sloane herbarium and the Badminton florilegium with representations in publications in the pre-Linnaean era. As the Biodiversity Heritage Library makes more of this literature, including landscape history, available online, the ability to explore Somerset’s participation and influence is greatly aided.

Beaufortia decussata. The genus Beaufortia was named for Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort. Illustration from: Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. v. 42 (1815). Contributed in BHL from the Peter H. Raven Library of the Missouri Botanical Garden.

References

Chambers, Douglas. “‘Storys of Plant'”: The Assembling of Mary Capel Somerset’s Botanical Collection at Badminton,” in Journal of the History of Collections, volume 9, 1997, pages 49-60.

Davies, Julie. “Botanizing at Badminton House: The Botanical Pursuits of Mary Somerset, First Duchess of Beaufort,” in Domesticity in the Making of Modern Science; editor, Donald L. Opitz (2016).

Duthie, Ruth. “The Planting Plans of Some Seventeenth-Century Flower Gardens,” in Garden History, volume 18, no. 2 (Autumn 1990), pages 77-102.

Laird, Mark. A natural history of English gardening, 1650-1800. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015.

Munroe, Jennifer. “’My Innocent Diverson of Gardening’: Mary Somerset’s Plants,” Renaissance Studies, volume 25, number 1, February 2011, pages 211-123.

The National Agricultural Library (NAL), Special Collections has one of the world’s largest collections of nursery and seed trade catalogs totaling over 200,000 from American as well as international companies. This collection, representing businesses located in all states plus over 50 countries, was named after its long-time curator, Henry G. Gilbert. The earliest catalog is from William R. Prince & Company dated 1771. NAL continues to collect modern-day catalogs.

The collection was begun by Percy Ricker, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s first economic botanist. Through the course of his work, he traveled to many plant nurseries throughout the country and collected duplicate copies of their catalogs. When he retired in the 1940s, he had amassed over 70,000 catalogs, and the collection grew from there.

NAL has been systematically digitizing its seed trade catalogs with over 41,000 catalogs available online through the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) as well as Internet Archive. The bulk of the holdings begin in the late 1800s, which is considered the golden age of mail order catalogs.

James Vick and Peter Henderson are two men who epitomized that golden age.

James Vick and Sons

James Vick (1818-1882) started in the seed business in 1860. Born in England, he immigrated with his family to New York in 1833 and would go on to influence the nursery and seed trade catalog business with beautiful color illustrations and much more.

James Vick and Sons Charles, James, and Frank. Vick’s Floral Guide, 1889. Digitized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.

Prior to getting into the seed business, Vick was a printer for newspapers, experience which helped make his Floral Guides eye-catching. The first one was published in 1862. Vick used chromolithography in several of the guides, creating beautiful horticultural images. In fact, he was a pioneer in mass-producing color illustrations in mass-market catalogs as demonstrated by his 1864 catalog that contained a full-page chromolithograph of double zinnias. His images became so popular that he produced a set of large prints that were either sold separately or given with large orders.

Vick’s Garden and Floral Guide, 1898. Digitized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.

In addition to being a skilled printer, Vick was a successful writer, editor, publisher, and owner of several well-known horticultural publications, so he knew how to connect with people. He developed a personal, chatty style of communication. In addition to information on seeds and plants, his guides shared gossip, correspondence, gardening advice, and a special children’s section as well as space for a complaints forum (for example, the high price of postage).

Vick’s Illustrated Floral Guide, 1873. Digitized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.

Throughout Vick’s life, he was constantly trying to improve his business. In the mid-19^th century, the best seeds came from Europe. American seeds had an inferior reputation at the time. He wanted to grow high-quality seeds in America and went to Europe to study the methods of the Old World (in particular the effects of climate). In the 1873 Vick’s Illustrated Floral Guide, he shared the results of his studies with readers.

Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden, 1878. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

In addition to his guides, he published a book titled Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden and Vick’s Illustrated Monthly magazine. He followed a pattern with lovely etchings, essays, conversation, and beautiful color plates.

Vick’s Seed House, 1880. Vick’s Floral Guide, 1881. Digitized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.

James Vick and Sons was extremely successful, growing the business to include flower farms and a five-story seed house that included a printing office, bindery, box-making establishment, and artists’ and engravers’ rooms. It was a self-contained business and was one of the largest and most well-run seed houses of its time. It had 300 orders and 3,000 letters a day, and its publications reached an annual circulation of 250,000. While its products were excellent, much of its success was due to James Vick and his understanding of the power of connecting and engaging with the customer. His sons carried on that tradition until the early 20^th century when the company was sold to Burpee Seed Company.

Peter Henderson

Another nurseryman whose catalogs enjoyed widespread distribution during the “Golden Age” of the mail order catalog business was Peter Henderson (1822-1890). One of the leading authorities on commercial floriculture of the time, he simplified and improved methods of handling plants for commercial purposes. He was head of Peter Henderson & Company, a seed and supply business. The company’s thick catalogs reflected Henderson’s sales concept of “Everything for the Garden” and offered seeds, bulbs, fertilizers, insecticides, and gardening and lawn tools. A prolific writer, Henderson gained popularity through his willingness to share horticultural techniques in his descriptive catalogs, books, articles, and letters.

Peter Henderson, Bailey’s Standard Cyclopedia of Agriculture, 1881.

Peter Henderson & Co.’s Manual of Everything for the Garden, 1886. Digitized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.

Born in Scotland in 1822, Henderson showed an early aptitude for handling plants. Perhaps his talent was inherited from his maternal grandfather who was a nurseryman and florist. Beginning at age 16, he apprenticed to head gardener George Sterling at Melville Castle. The following year, Henderson won a gold medal for the best herbarium of native and exotic plants submitted to the Royal Botanical Society of Edinburgh for a competition throughout Great Britain.

Scottish nurseryman Robert Buist’s property. Buist’s Garden Seeds, 1894. Digitized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.

In 1843, he immigrated to the United States and obtained employment as a gardener for several other Scottish nurserymen, including George Thorburn and Robert Buist. He remodeled Charles F. Spang’s greenhouses and grounds. In 1847, Peter and his brother James began a business growing vegetables in New Jersey and marketing them in nearby New York City.

Several years later, the brothers parted ways. Peter began growing and selling ornamental plants from his Jersey City property. In 1871, he founded Peter Henderson & Company and established a seed house and store in New York on Cortlandt Street. In 1880, from his property in nearby South Bergen, he erected state-of-the-art greenhouses with innovative heating and ventilation systems. The location of these greenhouses in the Jersey City area meant that his inventory could be transported conveniently across the country by means of rail and water ways.

Peter Henderson & Co. located at 35-37 Cortlandt Street, New York City. Peter Henderson & Co.’s Manual of Everything for the Garden, 1886. Digitized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.

Peter Henderson & Co. greenhouses. Peter Henderson & Co.’s Manual of Everything for the Garden, 1885. Digitized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.

Henderson was willing to share his knowledge on gardening topics with the public, even though it meant letting his competitors know about his research. He contributed articles to magazines such as Hovey’s Magazine of Horticulture, The Horticulturist, Gardener’s Monthly, The Country Gentleman, and Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. His son Alfred wrote in Henderson’s biography that the American Agriculturist desired all his writings so they “…paid him a price per column that has been considered perhaps the largest rate ever paid an American writer.”

Gardening for Profit, revised in 1874. Copy in BHL digitized by the Library of Congress.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture asked him to write an article on market gardening for the Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year 1865. The public’s interest in the subject led to Henderson writing his first book, Gardening for Profit (1866), the first of its kind about commercial marketing of vegetables. He went on to author four more books, including Practical Floriculture (1868), Gardening for Pleasure (1875), Garden and Farm Topics (1884), and Henderson’s Hand Book of Plants (1881). He co-authored How the Farm Pays (1884) with William Crozier, one of the most successful farmers in the United States.

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“To supply a population of a million inhabitants daily, throughout the year, with fresh vegetables would, it might be supposed, require an immense tract of land. Such, however, is not the case.”

Peter Henderson, “Market Gardening in the Vicinity of New York.” Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year 1865. (Page 243)

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Peter Henderson & Co.’s Manual of Everything for the Garden, 1909. Digitized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.

Henderson’s popular articles and books attracted customers for his plant and seed business. He wrote his own plant descriptions for his catalogs until 1890. He created clever and original advertisements. In fact, he was the first to use a heavy black border around his advertisements. Another reason for his popularity was his prompt and detailed response to correspondence. According to son Alfred in 1890, “…in the last thirty five years he wrote or dictated at least one hundred and seventy-five thousand letters.” He replied to correspondents the same day he received their letters, no matter how tired he was from the rigors of outdoor work and running a business.

An illustration of a gardener frequently appears in Henderson’s catalogs. Perhaps this figure represents Henderson. Bulbs, Plants, Seeds for Autumn Planting, Peter Henderson & Co., 1892. Digitized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.

Henderson even traveled long distances to give advice to entrepreneurs on such topics as land suitability, best plants to raise on the property, and greenhouse construction. It was the willingness of this leading florist, seed merchant, and horticultural writer to share knowledge that advanced horticulture from an art form to a science.

James Vick and Peter Henderson were shrewd businessmen who had great influence on the nursery and seed trade business through their catalogs, innovation, and personal styles. They became like friends to their readers and Vick’s seeds or Henderson’s opinions were often sought after. But, these were men who cared about horticulture both as art and science as well as business. They believed that gardening was an uplifting, healthy pursuit and wanted to promote the beauty of horticulture in addition to running successful businesses.

Bibliography

Bailey, Liberty Hyde. The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. Volume III -F.-K. Page 1579. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1915.

Becker, Robert F. “Peter Henderson: Plant Pioneer.” American Horticulturist, 74, no. 12 (December 1995): 24-30.

Christopher, Thomas. “Heirloom Seed Catalogs.” Horticulture 63, no. 12 (December 1985): 24-27.

Henderson, Alfred. Peter Henderson, Gardener-Author-Merchant: A Memoir. New York: McIlroy and Emmet. 1890. Accessed on March 19, 2018. https://archive.org/details/peterhendersonga01hend.

Henderson, Peter. “Market Gardening in the Vicinity of New York.” Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year 1865. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1866.

McIntosh, W.H. History of Monroe County, New York: With Illustrations, Descriptive of its Scenery, Palatial Residences, Public Buildings, Fine Blocks, and Important Manufactories 1788-1877. Philadelphia: Everts, Ensign and Events, 1877.

“Peter Henderson and Company – Peter Henderson and James Henderson.” Jersey City Past and Present. Accessed on March 12, 2018. http://www.njcu.edu/programs/jchistory/Pages/H_Pages/Henderson_Peter.htm.

Ricker, Percy L. and Magdalene R. Newman. The Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection of the United States Department of Agriculture. Washington, 1945. Accessed on April 17, 2018. http://archive.org/details/CAT31064290.

Van Ravenswaay, Charles. A Nineteenth-Century Garden. New York: Universe Books, 1977.

“Vick, James (1818-1882).” n.d. Accessed March 13, 2018. http://www.sil.si.edu/SILPublications/seeds/vickjames.html.

Illustration of a large, yellow flower with green stem and leaves. American Daffodil Society. The Daffodil Journal. Volume 1. 1961. Digitized in BHL by American Daffodil Society.

For Mary Lou Gripshover, daffodils started as an easy entry into horticulture, but led her to the unexpected, too.

“Half a century ago, when I was a young housewife, I belonged to a garden club which in turn participated in an area-wide flower show,” she explains. “Everyone had to enter. At that point I wasn’t much good at flower arrangements, and entering daffodils in the Horticulture Section was easy. Just cut a bloom and put it in the vase provided. And the stems didn’t bend, like tulips did. So then of course I had to get more daffodils so I could enter all the classes for the various divisions… and it just grew from there. Who knew 50 years ago that I’d make friends the world over, just because of a little yellow flower?”

A delicate painting of a single daffodil flower with a green stem and leaf. Curtis, William. The Botanical magazine, or, Flower-garden displayed. 1790. Digitized in BHL by Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library.

Gripshover serves as a librarian / digitizer for the American Daffodil Society (ADS), a group with international membership that has connected daffodil enthusiasts since its founding in 1954. In the spirit of National Gardening Month, we’re highlighting the ADS’ publication, The Daffodil Journal, which comes to BHL as part of the Expanding Access to Biodiversity Literature project. Early volumes of this quarterly journal from 1964-1968 are currently available on BHL, with more volumes on the way.

A page from a seed catalog with descriptions of varieties of Daffodil for sale, and two black and white illustrations; one a close-up of a flower variety called Empress, the other a mix of many flowers. Griffith and Turner Co. Bulbs and seeds.  1900. Digitized in BHL by U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.

According to the ADS website, ‘daffodil’ is the common name for all members of the genus Narcissus. There are somewhere between 40 and 200 different species/subspecies/varieties (depending on who you ask), and more than 25,000 registered cultivars (named hybrids).

The first mission of the ADS was to create a publication, starting with a small bulletin and yearbook. After its first decade, the society released its quarterly publication, The Daffodil Journal, to share information on “all aspects of daffodil culture, breeding, and exhibition.” Now the ADS has its own digitization project, DaffLibrary, where more than 3,000 resources on daffodils are available as downloadable PDFs or as links to other websites. The Daffodil Journal through the year 2012 is available on DaffLibrary, so you can view more recent issues of the publication there until more are added to BHL.

Colorful painting from the cover of a bulb magazine, including white and yellow daffodils and other yellow, white and pink flowers. Thorburn, J.M. & Co. Annual descriptive catalogue of flower seeds. 1903. Digitized in BHL by New York Botanical Garden, LuEsther T. Mertz Library.

“The ADS has had a ‘paper library’ almost from the beginning,” Gripshover says. But because the society has no permanent headquarters, the physical collection had to move several times, and didn’t get much use. “Occasionally a list of available titles would be published in the Journal, and maybe there’d be a little action then, but interest didn’t last. Eventually, it was decided that we should at least get back issues of the Journal scanned, so in 2004 we had 40 years’ worth of the Journal professionally scanned. Several years later, someone suggested that we should think about scanning some of the other materials we had. I foolishly said that I could do some scanning… and it’s turned into a permanent job! But it’s one I enjoy.”

A painting of yellow flowers with a darker yellow background. Ferry, D.M. & Co. Bulbs and seeds. 1913. Digitized in BHL by U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.

DaffLibrary is now the most-viewed of the ADS’ websites, and gets much more use than the physical collection did: in just the first 3 months of 2018, it connected close to 15,700 visitors to nearly 55,000 pages. Popular resources included book, historic, and scientific references; plant show handouts/material; casual-reading books and articles; biography information; and information about growing daffodils using different methods.

Many thanks to the American Daffodil Society for contributing The Daffodil Journal to BHL, and to Mary Lou Gripshover for sharing her story with us and dedicating years of work to support open access information!

A bold stencil-style image of yellow daffodils with green leaves and stems. Boddington, Arthur T.  Boddington’s quality bulbs, seeds and plants. 1911. Digitized on BHL by New York Botanical Garden, LuEsther T. Mertz Library.

References

American Daffodil Society

‘About’ DaffLibrary

Map of eastern North America. Detail of engraved map by Nicolaes Jansz Visscher, made about 1655, not long after Josselyn’s first journey to the New World. Note the prominent, plump turkey. Gift of Mrs. Francis P. Garvan, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

It is a small book, palm-size, with pages of less-than-fine paper, the well-worn letters of the type sometimes carelessly inked. The sparse woodcut illustrations are child-like in their simplicity and straight-forwardness. Yet John Josselyn’s New-Englands rarities discovered, printed in London in 1672, drew me in as I went about cataloging the work. Intrigued by the title and the early date of publication, I found myself reading an account of the landscape of my past, from Boston, “down east” (that is, up the coast as represented in the above illustration) to my place of birth, and points all around. That great bibliography, The Hunt Botanical Catalogue, notes that this book is “particularly interesting to people who are fond of Maine.” Indeed. The text provides a sense of place from the 17^th century.

Having refreshed my self here [Boston] for some time, and opportunely lighting upon a passage in a Bark belonging to a Friend of my Brothers, and bound to the Eastward, I put to sea again, and on the Fifteenth of August I arrived at Black-point, otherwise called Scarborow, the habitation of my beloved Brother, being about an hundred leagues to the Eastward of Boston; here I resided eight years, and made it my business to discover all along the Natural, Physical, and Chyrurgical Rarities of the New-found World.

BHL digitized copy, supplied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.

New-Englands rarities is an account of the author’s two journeys to America, the first in 1638 for several months and again in 1663 for a stay of eight years. Despite the autobiographical nature of the work, not much is known of Josselyn, “active” in cataloging parlance, from 1630 to 1675, and born around 1608 in Essex County. The author comes across as a learned, if not terribly discerning, gentleman with possibly a medical background. He describes the topography, customs and the natural history of the country, with great interest in the healing properties of organic materials from recipes used by both native Americans and colonists, leading to speculation that the Englishman was a physician. It may be Josselyn was simply well-read and the curious type. The era of European plant exploration in the New World, for both therapeutic, consumption and ornamental purposes, was underway by the time of Josselyn’s travels. There would be a ready audience for such information, particularly in a relatively accessible and inexpensive publication.

Prouts Neck. Painting by Winslow Homer (1836-1910), Smithsonian American Art Museums

“Scarborow” is the coastal area of Scarborough, incorporated as a town in 1658 in the present state of Maine. One of the area settlements was “Black-point” (originally a patent of 1500 acres) that included the rocky shoreline of present-day Prouts Neck, of artist Winslow Homer-fame (a place now known for exclusiveness). It was here that John Josselyn’s brother Henry lived and worked along the sea, rivers, stretches of salt marshes and sandy beaches. Henry Josselyn was representing the Royal grant of land, Council of Gorges’ Province of Maine, by 1636, and later served as Deputy-Governor.

There is some evidence that Henry Josselyn may have ascended the highest mountain in the Northeast, the 6,288-foot (1,917-meter) Mount Washington. His brother John, as did Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524, observed and recorded the peak (known by various names before European settlement) from shipboard in the Atlantic Ocean as “one stately mountain…surmounting the rest”:

“Fourscore miles (upon a direct line) to the Northwest of Scarborow, a Ridge of Mountains run Northwest and Northeast an hundred Leagues, known by the name of the White Mountains, upon which lieth Snow all year, and is a Land-mark twenty miles off at Sea.”

Skiing at Tuckerman’s Ravine, Mt. Washington, N. H. Watercolor by Arnold Holeywell (1923-2010). Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of the Ford Motor Company

John Josselyn’s further writings indicate that he probably also summited the mountain (as I did one June, when there was still snow on the slopes). Now a not-particularly arduous but long day’s hike in good weather along groomed trails, it was not a casual undertaking in the 1660’s. It is a volatile place with fierce, sometimes unpredictable, weather. The Josselyns probably journeyed along the magnificent Saco River, south of Scarborough, to reach the range. There John Josselyn made meteorological observations (The Mount Washington Observatory on April 12, 1934, recorded the wind at 231 miles per hour, a record that held through the 20^th century).