Boston Nurseryman Marshall Wilder Remembered James Vick

Philadelphia nurseryman Thomas Meehan in the 1883 issue of his  magazine Gardener’s Monthly included a speech given by Boston horticulturalist Marshall Wilder.  Wilder was President of the American Pomological Society when he gave the speech.

The APS meeting was  held that year in Philadelphia, home of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which Wilder recognized in his remarks.

There was a sense of community among the American seedsmen and nurserymen of the nineteenth century since they often saw one another and sometimes conducted business with each other.  When one of them died, the whole community mourned.

Rochester seedsman James Vick had died in May of 1882.

Wilder gave him this tribute in that October issue of Gardener’s Monthly: “No one has been more familiarly known to American households as a seedsman, florist, and publisher of a magazine as Mr. Vick.”

Vick had become a celebrity of sorts in the garden industry. People around the country bought his seeds and subscribed to his magazine, Vick’s Illustrated Monthly.

Wilder concluded: “No death in this line of business has been more generally or deeply deplored.”

And so the brotherhood of seedsmen and nurserymen recognized the contributions of one of their own.  Meehan, luckily for us, recorded it all in his garden magazine.

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