Note 138 — Chapter I · HISTORY OF THE PEACH (continued 2)

William Kenrick, son of John, of whom we have just written, was born in 1795 in the family mansion on Nonantum Hill in the town of Newton, Massachusetts. He was trained by his father as a nurseryman and in 1823 became a partner in the Kenrick nurseries, of which he soon after appears to have assumed control. The Kenrick nurseries, at this time, were probably the most extensive and the best known of any in New England. Besides growing the fruit-bearing plants of the time and such ornamentals as were then to be found in America, the Kenricks seem to have taken an enthusiastic part in the craze for the Lombardy Poplar which was then raging in America. The elder Kenrick must have been one of the early growers of this popular plant for in 1797 two acres of his nursery was appropriated to the Lombardy Poplar. The son, in his turn an enthusiast, succumbed to the silk-culture fad and seems in 1835 to have been one of the leading growers of the mulberry, Morus multicaulus for feeding silkworms. In this year Mr. Kenrick published the American Silk Growers Guide, which is, in essence, a treatise on mulberry-culture. William Kenrick's most notable pomological achievement, however, was the publication of the New American Orchardist which appeared in 1833. While not the best of the pomological manuals of the time, it is a valuable contribution to American pomology because of its full descriptions of the fruits of that date. Beginning with his father in 1823, William Kenrick continued in the nursery business for twenty-seven years, probably growing, importing and disposing of more fruit and ornamental trees than any other nurseryman in New England during this time. He died in February, 1872, at the ripe age of 77, having lived to see the orchards planted from his nursery come to full fruition and every part of New England made more beautiful by the ornamental trees and shrubs grown under his care.