Encounters with America's Premier Nursery and Botanic Garden

2004 Encounters with America’s Premier Nursery and Botanic Garden , and omas insects (including “musketoes” and the Jefferson,T then Secretary of State under Hessian fly), recording observations on George Washington, was embroiled in climate, the seasons and the appearance various political and personal matters. His of birds, and even boating and fishing in ideological vision for America, in conflict Lake George and Lake Champlain. with the governmental system espoused by eir journey did, nevertheless, in- Alexander Hamilton, was causing political corporate elements of a working vaca- relationships to crumble and his already tion, for Jefferson was seeking ways to strained friendship with John Adams advance the new nation through alterna- to deteriorate further. Consequently, tive domestic industries. He believed his Jefferson’s month-long “botanizing excur- most recent idea—the addition “to the sion” through New England with James products of the U. S. of three such articles Madison in June was the subject of much as oil, sugar, and upland rice”—would speculation that summer. Hamilton and lessen America’s reliance on foreign other political adversaries were con- trade, improve the lot of farmers, and vinced that this lengthy vacation of two ultimately result in the abolition of slav- Republican Virginians through Federalist ery itself. At that time a Quaker activist strongholds in the North had secret, ul- and philanthropist Dr. Benjamin Rush of terior motives. It would seem likely that, Philadelphia, himself an ardent opponent as Jefferson historian Merrill Peterson of slavery, was seeking ways to convince surmised, while the two future presidents political leaders and slave owners to cre- “bounced along in leisurely fashion, their ate a sugar maple industry in America, conversation must have turned occasionally convinced it would “lessen or destroy the to politics.” Yet, apparently the trip was in- consumption of West Indian sugar, and nocent of intrigue and intended exclusively thus indirectly to destroy negro slavery.” for, in Madison’s words, “health recreation Jefferson took up the cause of Benjamin and curiosity.” is goal was successfully Rush, becoming a conscientious con- achieved, for both Jefferson’s “periodical” sumer of maple sugar much in the way migraines and Madison’s “bilious attacks” that modern environmental activists vanished in the nearly four weeks they boycott plantation grown coffee today. In spent walking over historic battlefields, a letter to a friend in England, Jefferson studying botanical curiosities, wildlife and expressed the political and humanitarian 1 2004 , William Prince nursery broadside, . 2 3 2004 benefits of commercial independence when he wrote, “What a blessing to substitute a sugar which requires only the labour of children, for that which it is said renders the slavery of the blacks necessary.” e Princes of New York In their quest for the sugar maple, Jefferson and Madison made a noteworthy visit to the Prince Family Nursery in Flushing on the north shore of Long Island, New York. Established on eight acres of land in the s by Robert Prince—within a com- is sugar maple, which died in , munity chiefly of French Huguenot set- tlers—it became America’s first commercial was the last survivor of Jefferson’s nursery and remained a thriving family maple grove. business through four generations, until Long Island by the British, the by-then just after the Civil War. Initially called the successful and well-known nursery suf- “Old American Nursery,” it soon became fered little, for it was guarded by British the largest supplier of fruit trees and grapes General Lord Howe and his troops, who in the New World, producing most of the were interested in protecting the property grafted apple, pear, and cherry trees that for its contents. Following the war, an could be found in early northeastern or- excellent demand for American shrubs chards. ensued, as the former enemy soldiers Robert’s son William Prince, the shipped plants home to their gardens in nursery’s second proprietor and the one England and Germany. who was in charge at the time of Jefferson’s When William, in his advanced years, visit, was the first to propagate the native divided the operation between his two pecan commercially. In , the nursery’s sons, Benjamin and William, the second first broadside advertised different plum William Prince purchased additional trees, pear trees, apple trees and acreage nearby and, in , began “e varieties of nectarines. eir offerings ex- Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nursery.” panded and diversified by , when they Named for Carolus Linnaeus, the re- listed in the New York Mercury, “Carolina nowned Swedish botanist and naturalist Magnolia flower trees, the most beautiful who a mere half-century earlier had trees that grow in America, and large devised the system of plant classification Catalpa flower trees” along with other called binomial nomenclature, William flowering trees and shrubs. e Prince Prince’s Linnaean Botanic Garden served Nursery was among the first to introduce to educate the public as well as encour- Lombardy poplars and, in , they ad- age potential customers by displaying vertised ten thousand trees. e nursery the richness and diversity of the world’s continued its focus on fruits and, according botanical treasures. to U. P. Hedrick, “the first planned attempt As the Prince family nursery passed to improve fruit on a large scale began in from father to son, each generation the Prince Nursery” with their work on shared a common, underlying goal: to plum seedlings. propagate and make available every Although the American Revolutionary known plant of merit, including North War had led to a seven-year occupation of American species, not so much for profit 2 3 2004 as from a deep-rooted love of botany and now lies directly beneath the present the discipline of horticulture itself. is Rockefeller Center. Prince nurseries sup- scientifi c approach toward the natural plied Dr. Hosack with many of the trees world was an attitude in keeping with for his -acre estate on the Hudson the essential philosophical tenets also River, Hyde Park. embraced by Jeff erson and many of his William’s son, William Robert Prince contemporaries. was the fourth and fi nal generation to William Prince became an active oversee the family enterprise. William member of the newly created New York Robert operated the nursery more as a Horticultural Society. rough this pres- botanical garden and, as a young man, he tigious organization he was in fellowship accompanied professor John Torrey, of with Dr. David Hosack, who established Columbia University, and omas Nuttall, the Elgin Botanic Garden in , the of Harvard, on botanical forays and plant city’s original botanical garden, which collecting expeditions throughout the entire length of the Atlantic States. He would later publish two important books on fruits, A Treatise on the Vine and A Pomological Manual, which became stan- dard references for decades. Likewise, the Prince catalogs from through became common resources for horticultur- ists of all sorts. His now rare manuscript, Manual of Roses, published in , two years after Robert Buist’s seminal volume e Rose Manual, fi rmly established him as a premier authority on roses of the th century. But, his unwavering zeal to import white mulberry trees and promote the silkworm industry nearly bankrupted the family business. Although the nursery operations ended after William Robert Prince’s death in , many unusual trees and shrubs fl ourished on the property and throughout Flushing well into the th century. In her book, Old Time Gardens Newly Set Forth, published in , Alice Morse Earle describes the “oldest Chinese magnolias” and the “fi nest Cedar of Lebanon in the United States” still stand- ing in the forlorn and forgotten garden at the Prince homestead. Exploring the Nursery in Flushing Two years prior to Jeff erson’s and Madison’s journey to Flushing, two other invoice of Jeff erson’s order from notable American statesmen paid a visit to William Prince. the Prince Nursery. In October , when 4 5 2004 birds-eye view of Flushing, New York. the seat of American government was maples and bush cranberries (Viburnum in New York City, George Washington, trilobum) as well as three balsam poplars, six accompanied by vice Venetian “sumachs” (Cotinus president John Adams, obovatus), and twelve “Bursé” “set off from New York, (Beurré Gris) pears. Later that about nine o’clock in year Jefferson would receive my barge, to visit Mr. sixty sugar maple trees, Prince’s Prince’s fruit gardens entire stock, which were sub- and shrubberies at sequently planted “in a grove” Flushing.” Although below the Second Roundabout his assessment would on the northeast slope of improve upon later visits, Monticello mountain. is be- President Washington came Jefferson’s experiment in was unimpressed with sugar production at Monticello. what he saw during his Eventually, it was found that first, noting “these gar- Beurré Gris Pear the central Virginia climate was dens, except in the num- not ideally suited for adequate ber of young fruit trees, did not answer sap flow in the spring, and Jefferson’s well- my expectations. e shrubs were trifling intended project proved unsuccessful. While and the flowers not numerous.” a national commercial sugar industry never Jefferson, on the other hand, certainly took hold, Jefferson continued to advocate saw much that interested him. He began the sugar maple on a household level by stat- that summer day by making the following there was no reason why every farmer ing entry in his Memorandum Book: “should not have a sugar orchard, as well as “June , . Hamstead. breakfd. –went an apple orchard.” to Prince’s at Flushing.” While at the But, William Prince’s shipment of home of William Prince, Jefferson left plants—which arrived at Monticello in early a note requesting “all you have” of sugar December, nearly a month after Prince’s 4 5 2004 November invoice—was substantially larger than the original limited request Jefferson made in June.

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