The gardeners among us have been planning their Spring 2013 gardening for months now. There are plenty of plants that can be prepared for the season before; perennials can be trimmed up and put to bed; beds for other plants can be prepared; the work is more or less endless if you want it to be. Just about now, too, the seed and plant companies start sending out their temptingly colored works for the creation of gardening wish-lists.
These works aren’t quite as colorful as, say, Burpee’s shiny Technicolor productions, but they provide valuable insight into the intersection between medicine, science, and gardening at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th.
Henry G. Parsons’ Children’s Gardens for Pleasure, Health, and Education (1910) is dedicated to his mother, Mrs. Henry Parsons, who was the founder of the first “Children’s School Farm” in New York City. Parsons now seeks to enlarge his mother’s original project by establishing the physiological, psychological, educational, and emotional benefits to children and their families of experience in gardens.
Almost a century earlier, David Hosack, professor of botany and materia medica at Columbia College, purchased land for gardens, conservatories, and hot-houses for the closer study of botany, medical and non. The Description of Elgin Gardens outlines his plans for the land and the wide variety of species that could be viewed there. For those who wanted even more detail, Hosack provided A catalogue of plants, indigenous and exotic, cultivated in the Elgin Botanic Gardens. A few years later, Hosack donated the garden — with all contents — to the state of New York, and assembled A statement of facts relative to the establishment and progress of the Elgin Botanic Garden : and the subsequent disposal of the same to the State of New-York to describe the history and progress of the garden and his legal donation of it to the state.
As always, for more from the Medical Heritage Library, please visit our full collection!
3 comments
Hanna Clutterbuck says:
January 23, 2013 at 8:29 am (UTC -5)
You’re welcome! We hope you enjoy them.
Calgary Paving Stones says:
January 22, 2013 at 8:51 pm (UTC -5)
Henry G Parson is a genious, I love the man’s work. Thank you for the post and links!
Jody T. Rivers says:
January 21, 2013 at 6:29 am (UTC -5)
When planting seeds make sure you plant them at the right time of the year, this varies for different flowers and plants. You can find this out on the back of the package for every flower seed you plan to plant. One thing is common with all the flowers though when planting seeds, make sure the last frost has past according to the dew point. Just because the weather is gorgeous outside does not mean it still doesn’t frost up in the morning. Frost depends on the dew point and humidity of the air during sunrise when the barometric pressure rises. Your local weather channel will tell you the dew points along the the weather daily. The last frost varies from town to city across New York state starting with April 13th in New York City and ending with June 19th in Lake Placid. You also have to watch out for that first frost in Autumn as well. Here is a chart on Victory Seeds that can help you determine the last and first frost in your area in New York. Click here to view the average first and last frost dates for New York or follow this link http://www.victoryseeds.com/frost/ny.html .