HAMMOND (Henry).
Forest Trees, Shrubs and American Plants, &c. Sold by Henry Hammond, at Dukes Hill and Windelsham Nurseries.
AMERICAN PLANTS IN ENGLAND
HAMMOND (Henry).
Forest Trees, Shrubs and American Plants, &c. Sold by Henry Hammond, at Dukes Hill and Windelsham Nurseries.
A most unusual survival: a nurseryman’s price list demonstrating the market for American plants in England.
All of the prices in Henry Hammond’s list are written in manuscript, and there is a separate section for American plants, which includes (among others) magnolias, rose acacia, staghorn sumac, snowy mespilus, and clethra alnifolia. The list includes notes on their size, the quantity each price represents (ie a dozen or a hundred) plus whether they were transplanted, seedlings, or in pots.
The autograph note is correspondence from Hammond to a prospective customer “as I have some Plants of different kinds something larger than stated in this paper, I have no doubt of being able to supply all your order.”
Of course the most famous American plant to come to England is tobacco brought back by Sir Walter Raleigh. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, American plants were sold as expensive exotics, though became more widely available throughout the eighteenth century. This lovely piece of ephemera is a useful snapshot of the early nineteenth-century market for such plants along with their current prices.
