By Pleasance Crawford
Linus Woolverton, an influential editor, author, and fruitgrower, was of the third generation of a horticulturally prominent Grimsby, Ontario, family. His father, Charles Edward Woolverton, was A.M. Smith’s partner in the Grimsby Nursery. His son, Charles Ernest Woolverton, was among the first Canadian-born landscape architects.
Linus was born in Grimsby, and received Mas from the University of Toronto in 1870 and from McMaster University in 1897. He served as secretary to the Fruit Growers’ Association of Ontario, 1886-1903, and as editor of its monthly The Canadian Horticulturist, 1886-1904. He read widely and kept in touch with many contemporaries in Canada and the United States.
Through the pages of The Canadian Horticulturist, he informed readers not only about fruitgrowing, ornamental horticulture, and horticultural society activities, but also about landscape architecture and civic improvement. Maplehurst, his home and fruit farm in Grimsby, served for many years as an informal research station and, in the early 1900s, as a provincially designated fruit experimental farm. While noting his long editorial career, his dedication of the Fruit Growers’ Association of Ontario, his work for the Fruit Branch of the Ontario Department of Agriculture, and the excellence of his fruit farm, Woolverton’s eulogizers praised him particularly as author of Fruits of Ontario and The Apple Grower’s Guide.
Photo credit: The Canadian Horticulturist, 1893.
©Pleasance Crawford. If you quote from this short essay, a citation would be appreciated.
Researching Historic Gardens and Landscapes 