Peter
Henderson was a market gardener, florist, seeds
man and author. He was born in Scotland and died in
Jersey City, N.J. He was trained in Old World methods
of gardening, and came to America in 1843. He started
market gardening in 1847 with a capital of $500.00.
The publication Gardening for Profit (1868) was the
first American book devoted entirely to market
gardening and it encouraged many to enter the
business. The book was written in 100 hours, when the
writer was writing 16 hours a day at manual labor and
150,000 copies were sold. Revisions were made in 1874
and 1887. This was an epoch making book in vegetable
crops.
Henderson's Practical Floriculture (1868)
was also an epoch making book in commercial
floriculture. Until this time most books of gardening
were written for the amateur. For this audience he
wrote Gardening for Pleasure (1875). In 1881 he
was aided by C.L. Allen in producing The Handbook
of Plants. Garden and Farm Topics was
issued in 1884. It is said that nearly 250,000 copies
of his book were sold. (It is interesting to note that
several of the books in the Department of Horticulture
and Forestry Library at The Ohio State University came
from the library of C.L. Allen).
His seed business was started in 1865. Few men have
done more to simplify the handling of plants for
commercial use. His greenhouses were models for his
many visitors and his methods were widely copied. He
was a frequent contributor to horticultural and
agricultural magazines and write or dictated over
175,000 letters. His influence was very decisive in
these fields of horticulture.
