A picturesque figure in Baltimore, Md, is the dean of the gardening fraternity in active work, Anthony Cook (properly Koch) who in his eighty-seventh year may be found daily at the accustomed tasks he has followed for over seventy years. Born in Derkeim, in Rhinish Bavaria in 1818, he emigrated to this country in 1842, landing in Philadelphia and coming a year later to Baltimore. The son of a nurseryman and landscape gardener, he had learned the business and found employment in it for several years, working with some of the older florists, jobbing, etc., until by thrift and energy he secured a place of his own on what is now Carrollton avenue. From this he removed in 1858 to his present location, buying an acre of ground at the corner of Arlington avenue and Mulberry street. What was then almost the western limit of the city has become surrounded by dwellings and public institutions, but the old gentleman has kept up his steady routine of production and has sold no part of his property.
From the outset he made a specialty of out-door roses, growing them in great quantities, importing every year new sorts from the growers of France and Germany, propagating them and distributing to the trade and at retail. Another feature was made of dwarf apples and pears, which were worked on the paradise and quince stocks, and brought into bearing at the age of three years. This was a novelty at this period and for a time took well. To the rose his soil and location must have been peculiarly well adapted, as many of the original rose plants first planted on his acquiring the place still survive in thrifty condition, including Sidonia Weaver, which he says was the first hybrid perpetual introduced into America, originating with M. Weaver, a rosarian of Chatenay, near Paris.
Mr. Cook began early to raise seedling roses—this not by any system of hybridizing but by indiscriminate sowing of seeds from the bushes in his grounds. Of course no record was or could be kept of the parentage of such seedlings, except to know from what plant the seed was gathered, the pollination being affected by the natural agency of the wind, the bees and other insects, but a great many were tested in his gardens and found to possess merit. Thus from a seed ball of Devoniensis there were two accidental seedlings, one of which, De Saundry, of great promise, was soon lost, but the other, named after his daughter, Cornelia Cook, possessed many good qualities, passed into commerce, and before the advent of the Bride was the most useful white rose for forcing. It made a fine, large, pure white bud, with long stiff stems, and—remarkable in a tea rose was almost thornless. At one time during its popularity buds of this rose are known to Mr. Cook to have sold in New York at $2 each. Another of his fortuitous seedlings is the climbing rose Charles Getz, a most vigorous grower, making shoots at times of sixteen feet in a season, and producing an abundance of silvery pink flowers much resembling La France. It is a local favorite and known here as the Climbing La France.
Mr. Cook does not assent to the current belief that the American Beauty is identical with Mme. Ferdinand Jamin. His claim is that the Beauty originated in his garden. Here is his statement:
In one year he had planted about 900 seedling roses, produced in the indiscriminate manner alluded to. Some of these showed value and were propagated, and one which proved to be a variety of fine form, color and substance, he named for his sister, Madame d'Appolinia. One of these roses, with others, was purchased by Mrs. Bancroft, a daughter of George Bancroft, the historian and rose-lover of the city of Washington. It was in the garden of that gentleman that Mr. Field, the well-known florist of the same city, saw the rose, and, believing it would force, took cuttings of it, and found his anticipations so fully realized that its introduction to commerce was early and profitable.
If Mr. Cook rendered this great, even if unpremeditated, service to the rose growers of the country it is but his due that the fact should be known. Whether the rose originated from the seed sown by his own fingers or was a stray Mme. F. Jamin, which found its way with other importations to his premises, the statement seems worthy of belief that the original plant which attracted the keen and intelligent notice of Mr. Field came from his garden.
This old gentleman not only works at the bench and in the garden daily, but reads and writes without the aid of glasses and is comparatively vigorous and well preserved in mind and body, interested in the trade and in the world around him and in the success of his descendants, who are florists to the third generation. S. B.
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American Florist 22: 658-659 (May 14, 1904)
Anthony Cook.
A picturesque figure in Baltimore, Md, is the dean of the gardening fraternity in active work, Anthony Cook (properly Koch) who in his eighty-seventh year may be found daily at the accustomed tasks he has followed for over seventy years. Born in Derkeim, in Rhinish Bavaria in 1818, he emigrated to this country in 1842, landing in Philadelphia and coming a year later to Baltimore. The son of a nurseryman and landscape gardener, he had learned the business and found employment in it for several years, working with some of the older florists, jobbing, etc., until by thrift and energy he secured a place of his own on what is now Carrollton avenue. From this he removed in 1858 to his present location, buying an acre of ground at the corner of Arlington avenue and Mulberry street. What was then almost the western limit of the city has become surrounded by dwellings and public institutions, but the old gentleman has kept up his steady routine of production and has sold no part of his property.
From the outset he made a specialty of out-door roses, growing them in great quantities, importing every year new sorts from the growers of France and Germany, propagating them and distributing to the trade and at retail. Another feature was made of dwarf apples and pears, which were worked on the paradise and quince stocks, and brought into bearing at the age of three years. This was a novelty at this period and for a time took well. To the rose his soil and location must have been peculiarly well adapted, as many of the original rose plants first planted on his acquiring the place still survive in thrifty condition, including Sidonia Weaver, which he says was the first hybrid perpetual introduced into America, originating with M. Weaver, a rosarian of Chatenay, near Paris.
Mr. Cook began early to raise seedling roses—this not by any system of hybridizing but by indiscriminate sowing of seeds from the bushes in his grounds. Of course no record was or could be kept of the parentage of such seedlings, except to know from what plant the seed was gathered, the pollination being affected by the natural agency of the wind, the bees and other insects, but a great many were tested in his gardens and found to possess merit. Thus from a seed ball of Devoniensis there were two accidental seedlings, one of which, De Saundry, of great promise, was soon lost, but the other, named after his daughter, Cornelia Cook, possessed many good qualities, passed into commerce, and before the advent of the Bride was the most useful white rose for forcing. It made a fine, large, pure white bud, with long stiff stems, and—remarkable in a tea rose was almost thornless. At one time during its popularity buds of this rose are known to Mr. Cook to have sold in New York at $2 each. Another of his fortuitous seedlings is the climbing rose Charles Getz, a most vigorous grower, making shoots at times of sixteen feet in a season, and producing an abundance of silvery pink flowers much resembling La France. It is a local favorite and known here as the Climbing La France.
Mr. Cook does not assent to the current belief that the American Beauty is identical with Mme. Ferdinand Jamin. His claim is that the Beauty originated in his garden. Here is his statement:
In one year he had planted about 900 seedling roses, produced in the indiscriminate manner alluded to. Some of these showed value and were propagated, and one which proved to be a variety of fine form, color and substance, he named for his sister, Madame d'Appolinia. One of these roses, with others, was purchased by Mrs. Bancroft, a daughter of George Bancroft, the historian and rose-lover of the city of Washington. It was in the garden of that gentleman that Mr. Field, the well-known florist of the same city, saw the rose, and, believing it would force, took cuttings of it, and found his anticipations so fully realized that its introduction to commerce was early and profitable.
If Mr. Cook rendered this great, even if unpremeditated, service to the rose growers of the country it is but his due that the fact should be known. Whether the rose originated from the seed sown by his own fingers or was a stray Mme. F. Jamin, which found its way with other importations to his premises, the statement seems worthy of belief that the original plant which attracted the keen and intelligent notice of Mr. Field came from his garden.
This old gentleman not only works at the bench and in the garden daily, but reads and writes without the aid of glasses and is comparatively vigorous and well preserved in mind and body, interested in the trade and in the world around him and in the success of his descendants, who are florists to the third generation. S. B.