196 pp. 4to. Contemporary sheep, blind fillets to boards, rebacked in contrasting leather with gilt title, endpapers renewed. Some shallow scuffs and scratches to boards, light wear to board edges. Text in single neat hand on blue ruled paper, small spots to a few leaves but internally clean and legible overall.

Item #378652

This fascinating and highly detailed journal traces the career of gardener William McLeod (c.1826-1856) from 1847 to 1854 — a period of tremendous growth in American horticulture.

McLeod, a Scottish immigrant to the Providence, Rhode Island area, began his career at Providence's Elm Grove estate as an apprentice under fellow Scot William Nisbet. The first section contains weekly entries from the beginning of his apprenticeship in March 1847 to its end in November 1848. McLeod's projects reflect the immense variety of trends that characterized this period: gravel paths, manicured lawns, fruit orchards, flower, fruit and vegetable beds, and greenhouses, which were becoming increasingly common on private estates. The second section contains even more information, including lists compiled for personal reference, 14 months of daily temperature readings, and a detailed accounting of every variety of plant cultivated at Elm Grove with notes on procedures like forcing, grafting and budding.

At the end of McLeod's time with Nisbet, he left "for Home (Scotland)…to pursue my business some time there." The second section of the journal is dedicated to this period, which he spent at the experimental garden of the prestigious Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society in Edinburgh. The entries contain a similar level of detail regarding McLeod's work and the procedures in place at the garden.

By 1850, he was back in America and taking "full charge" of the gardens belonging to wealthy Providence industrialists Amos D. and James Y. Smith, which encompassed about 4 acres of land. His greater authority is reflected in a new type of entry: full accounts of his expenditures, which totaled a staggering $3,550 for 1850 as the gardens were established. Other entries demonstrate his growing skill and ambition as a gardener, recording his experiments with guano and superphosphate and notes from lectures he attended. Records of the Rhode-Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry note that these investments paid off — McLeod won prizes at the Society's exhibitions every year from 1851 to 1853.

McLeod left the Smiths in 1854 for a position at the Millville, Massachusetts estate of H.S. Mansfield, “a place in embryo” where he would have even more opportunities to shape the gardens as he wished. The journal continues in the same style until December 1854; McLeod died in Millville of a sudden illness in 1856.

Reflecting on his time with the Smiths in 1854, he writes (punctuation added for clarity, spelling retained): “I am happy to say that my attachment to my business increaces and as a source of pleasure and benifit to man & mankind in every paramount degree I am confident it is unparalleled. I will bring these few remarks to a close by hoping that in this great Country it may increase at least with other things, which is a sure sign of the fair condition morally of any nation, and that by doing so may be the means of elevating fallen human nature to that degree which is naturally the desire of the mind, and giving to all who contemplate the Almighty in his most wonderful productions a fortaste of that Paradise beyond this narrow sphere—that ever blooming Paradise alloyed by no winter’s chill or tempest’s blast, the abode of all those that have been or will be washed by the blood of Christ—that Paradise above, most fitly represented on Earth by a Garden of Flowers”.