[Rarebooks] fs: Wonderful Victorian Garden Association Copy

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

Inscribed to the man who developed one of New York's greatest Victorian 
day-excursion parks, and who brought the subway to New York City-

Henderson, Peter. PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE; A Guide to the Successful 
Cultivation of Florists' Plants, for the Amateur and Professional Florist. 
New York; Orange Judd Company: 1874. New & Enlarged edition. A very popular 
19th century guide to garden planning, greenhouses, cultivation, 
propagation, insects, &c.

This copy is inscribed to John H. Starin, a prominent New York shipping 
magnate and developer and owner of Glen Island, one of the most popular and 
successful day-excursion parks in 19th century America. Built on a series 
of small wooded islands in Long Island Sound, Glen Island was beautifully 
and imaginatively landscaped, and the islands were linked with picturesque 
footbridges. Intended to be conducive to women and families, they provided 
a "genteel" alternative to the rowdier attractions of Coney Island. Starin 
collected statues and exotic plants to decorate the parks on Glen Island, 
and erected a conservatory, museum, zoo, aviary, bathing houses, fish 
ponds, bowling alleys, and a dancing pavilion there. Many years there would 
be a different "exotic" feature- one year it was a German Village, another 
year a four-story Chinese pagoda.

We would be remiss if we did not mention here Starin's other legacy to New 
York -the subway system. In 1893 Jay Gould's Manhattan Company laid before 
the New York Transit Commission a proposal which would have, in effect, 
given the financier who controlled all of New York's elevated railroads 
complete control of all New York transit for an indefinite period of time. 
The proposal needed the unanimous approval of the Commission, and was 
defeated when Starin was the only one of its five members to vote against 
it. The next year a new Commission, on which Starin also sat, voted to 
develop a subway system for the city instead of more elevated rail lines.

But back to gardening, for Starin's landscaping activities were not 
confined to New York. His father founded Fultonville, New York, and Starin 
and his brothers ran the town after his father's death. Starin eventually 
turned the family farm there into a beautifully landscaped 600-acre estate 
called "Prospect Hill". This book is inscribed "To The Honb'l John H. 
Starin with compliments of Peter Henderson, October 22nd, 1878". An 
interesting gardening association. Hardcover. 5"x7.5", 311 pages, text 
illustrations; publisher's brick-red cloth with gilt bouquet on the cover. 
Light wear, a little rubbing to the covers, spine head dented, but overall 
a very nice copy. [07280] $125.00



JOSLIN HALL RARE BOOKS, ABAA
Fine books of the 16th-20th centuries
on the decorative and fine arts & design

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telephone (617) 492-5367

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