Henderson, Peter

Peter (1822-1890), a gardener, florist, seedsman, and writer. He was born near Edinburgh, Scotland, and died at Jersey City. Henderson learned market gardening in Scotland and came to this country in 1843 with the savings of three years of manual labor. He began raising vegetables for the New York City market. In 1865 he opened up a seed business which is still conducted by his sons. His fame rests on numerous books for the market gardener and amateur. Henderson was a natural manager of details as well as of affairs on a large scale, and his books told how. Gardening for Profit appeared in 1865. A friend states that he wrote it in bed in an aggregate of 100 hours wedged in before going to sleep at the close of a day's work of sixteen hours, largely of manual labor. One hundred and fifty thousand copies of this practical book were sold. Practical Floriculture, Gardening for Pleasure, The Handbook of Plants, Garden and Farm Topics, How the Farm Pays, followed in due succession. Although it is estimated that Mr. Henderson wrote 100,000 letters with his own hand he was never too busy to answer inquiry as to how to cultivate vegetables or flowers. Peter Henderson is an example of the simple, hard-headed, shrewd, kindly, industrious, able, unselfish, successful man of money, of whom we cannot have too many. See Vegetables