 Lawrence's Favorite Plum | Rewards and Contributions |
Lawrence's Favorite Plum | Rewards and Contributions |
Rochester’s leading nurserymen had meanwhile gained positions of influence and respect in the community on the Genesee as well as among horticulturists near and far. Patrick Barry’s writings for the Genesee Farmer down to 1852, his service as editor of The Horticulturist during 1853 and 1854, his Fruit Garden, and his many addresses before agricultural and horticultural societies had long since established his reputation along with Charles Downing, J. J. Thomas, and a few others as the outstanding horticulturists of the mid-century. The city was glad to use his services when available as school commissioner, but not until after the Civil War did Barry find time to branch out into other commercial activities. George Ellwanger quickly gained a reputation for his bold and able management of the business affairs of the nursery and soon found his services in demand as a trustee for one and another local bank and commercial enterprise. It is interesting to note that in May, 1858, Ellwanger and Barry were able to loan ten thousand dollars to William A. Reynolds, from whom George Ellwanger had received his start twenty-two years before, increasing the loan to twenty thousand five years later, for which they held a mortgage on the Arcade in company with J. J. Astor of New York. The partners took an active part in organizing the Rochester City and Brighton Street Railway, and it is worth noting that the first line to be opened ran towards their nursery. Each erected a sumptuous residence that rivalled the most elegant in the city in the mid-sixties, with furnishings brought from New York, including a "Parlor Grand" Steinway for the Ellwangers. The business trips to Europe became in the sixties family excursions, which the company of other leading Rochesterians, such as Myron G. Peck, helped to turn into cultural scouting trips of a high order. With growing affluence the partners became generous patrons not only of their respective churches but of various charities as they appeared. They especially delighted in presenting ornamental trees to various schools and colleges, among which was the gift of the Shakespeare tree to the University of Rochester in 1864.None of the other local nurserymen of the period won so much personal distinction as a result of their horticultural labors, but a respectable standing was enjoyed by all. Josiah Bissell and Horace Hooker, two older leaders in the community who had tried their hands at milling and land promotion, turned to the nursery field as its prospects became assured. Several of the men who became interested in one or another of the farmers’ papers likewise enjoyed influential positions in the community and either dabbled for a time with the nursery business or, as in the case of James Vick and Joseph Harris a few years later, developed extensive seed stores. Meanwhile the horticulturists were as a group gaining an established place in the city formerly dominated by millers.
The number and strength of their societies demonstrates this growing stability. The Mount Hope Young Men’s Nursery Association with its fifty members is a curious illustration of the trend. Both the Genesee Valley Horticultural Society, organized on a permanent footing in the mid-forties, and the Fruit Growers’ Society of Western New York, organized a decade later, drew their chief support from Rochester nurserymen and made this city their headquarters. The Monroe County Agricultural Society was the most inclusive of these organizations, seeking to enroll the grain and cattle men as well, but frequently the most notable displays at the annual fairs were those arranged in collaboration with the Genesee Valley Horticultural Society.
In 1856 after a long agitation the Monroe County Agricultural Society acquired a permanent site for its fairs. A tract of twenty-five acres in Brighton, two miles south of the city, fronting on the West Henrietta Plank Road was acquired for four thousand dollars. Additional expenditures for fencing the lot and erecting buildings strained the Society’s resources. Ellwanger and Barry were called upon to advance some of the needed funds, but within a decade the numerous horse shows, plowing matches, and farm machinery exhibitions, aided by occasional attractions, such as a competition for the best "female equestrian," or a balloon ascension, drew sufficient crowds paying twenty-five cents admission to defray all expenses. The fair grounds became a favorite meeting place for the State Society, which came to Rochester on nine occasions, starting with 1843 and ending with 1887, three years before its permanent location at the State Fair Grounds in Syracuse. On each of these occasions the horticultural exhibit stood out as the exceptional feature of the fair. Ellwanger and Barry regularly took most of the first prizes in the fruit division, but an increasing number of local nurserymen and amateurs successfully displayed both fruit and flowers.
Meanwhile, various accessory industries, profiting in many ways from the expanding nurseries, were growing in size and consequence. The circulation of the New Genesee Farmer had mounted under the editorship of James Vick from less than twenty thousand, to claim over forty thousand, said to be the largest in the land. The success of the Farmer had prompted the establishment of Moore’s Rural New Yorker in 1850 and of the Wool Grower and Stock Register, started in 1848. On the death of A. J. Downing, editor and owner of the nationally famous Horticulturist, James Vick bought the paper and moved it to Rochester in 1853. Patrick Barry became editor, and the city then finally assumed leadership in the field of agricultural publications. Numerous catalogues and other horticultural publications were issued by Rochester nurserymen and their confederates in these years. Notable among these was The Colored Fruit Book published by D. M. Dewey of Rochester in 1862. So extensive did this demand for illustrated catalogues and other special publications become that by 1871 four printing offices in the city were kept busy during several months each year to supply them.
Contrary to the fears of some, the success of Rochester’s nurseries stimulated the growth of local seedstores. James Vick had early begun on the side to grow flower seed in a little garden on Union Street, sending out by mail the seed ordered by the widening circle of the readers of his publications. In 1866 he acquired his site on East Avenue which rapidly developed into one of the most famous seed-growing display gardens in the country. His packing rooms were transferred from his own attic to larger quarters and in 1860 were moved into the spacious seed store on State Street. By 1870 his mail was averaging over three hundred orders a day with the firm’s postage mounting to fifteen thousand dollars during the year. As many as one hundred and fifty thousand catalogues were sent out each year. The printing of both text and colored engravings, the binding of the catalogues, and the manufacture of paper boxes for the seed shipments crowded the State Street building with activity. A staff of more than one hundred was required in the office and packing house, not including the workmen on the seventy-five acres of seed gardens scattered about the city. With the slower growth of three other seedmen — Crosman, Rapalje, and the Briggs Brothers — Rochester was described by the end of the sixties as the outstanding seed distributing center of the country.
The expanding fruit orchards of Western New York may not properly be classified as accessory to Rochester's nurseries, but certainly there was an intimate relation between the two industries. Both profited from the same advantages of soil, climate, and transport, while the trend away from grain farming in the Genesee Country gave each its opportunity. A considerable portion of the market of the nurserymen was supplied by the orchardists of the area, and in return the nurserymen supplied the latter with the horticultural leadership which enabled them to develop commercial outlets for their products. The Western New York Fruit Growers’ Association, led by the nurserymen, discussed these problems at length. Patrick Barry noted in one address that "the Railroads now place us within a few hours of New York City ... with its more than half a million consumers." L. B. Langworthy, a skilled farmer near Rochester, told of a neighbor who "had sent some twenty thousand bushels of apples to England in a year, and at a very great profit." Even at seventy-five cents a barrel a good apple orchard would make money. Another noted that "the profit on wheat in this section is about ten dollars per acre. Those who have been raising apples in good orchards will average at least fifty dollars a year above all expenses." Mr. Chapin’s three-acre pear orchard in Canandaigua, after eight years growth, had shipped fifty barrels of fruit to New York where they sold at "eighteen to twenty dollars a barrel making nearly a thousand dollars."
Visitors from abroad, no less than the proud orchardists themselves, delighted in describing the laden fruit trees. Robert Russell was as favorably impressed by the orchards around Rochester as by its nurseries:
The soil is somewhat stiff and stony in the vicinity of Rochester, but fruit trees also thrive remarkably well. ... In going through some of the orchards (along Lake Ontario) I was surprised at the crops which trees only eight years old were bearing. They were standards, and every branch was literally bent towards the ground with its load of ripe peaches. The best peaches of a delicious flavour were selling at four shillings a bushel, while secondary kinds might be had for half this sum. About 120,000 bushels would be gathered this year in a narrow strip along the banks of the river.Fear was expressed occasionally lest the "mania for fruit raising" lead to the same disaster as that of the mulberry a few years before. The editor of the Genesee Farmer, himself a nurseryman, responded that "it would be unwarrantable, at the present time for the farmers of Western New York to abandon grain growing and turn their attention exclusively to the culture of fruit, but a great demand exists for the best varieties of long-keeping Apples and Pears, and such sorts may be very generally planted with flattering prospects of producing remunerative results." Poor crops, which in 1850 were by some attributed to the same atmospheric condition that produced cholera, were more generally recognized by the end of the decade as due to improper care, or exceptionally cold winters, and the latter calamity was not expected to occur more frequently than once in fifteen years.Judging from the state census reports, many farmers in Western New York were ready to experiment with fruit. Except for the cider industry and occasional orchardists the raising of fruit had remained a domestic luxury for the most part until 1855. By that date Monroe County was producing nearly half a million barrels of apples a year, a quantity exceeded only by six other central and western New York counties. Monroe’s twenty-two thousand bushels of peaches were second to the twenty-eight thousand bushels reported for Wayne, but the amounts reported for the other fruits were insignificant. By 1865 the commercial production of a variety of fruits had already become a local specialty; greater returns were reported for Monroe County than for any other, but the total of all fruits except the apple barely reached twenty thousand dollars. The apple product for that year showed but little advance during the decade and was exceeded by six other counties, but already Monroe reported the largest number of apple trees in fruit, 391,902, many of them just reaching their fruit-bearing age. Wayne and Ontario were the two leading rivals, proving that the days of the fruit orchard had finally dawned in Western New York.