Epilogue

This epilogue explains that even though plant nurserymen faded from the larger US consciousness throughout the country in the early decades of the twentieth century, their absence was especially notable in the city most dramatically shaped by the nineteenth-century plant trade. For many of the residents of the Flower City, the urgings and messages of the regional reformers quickly disappeared from citizens' collective consciousness as the twentieth century progressed. Residents' gradual neglect of the nurserymen was no doubt influenced by the rapid removal of the profession from the city's urban landscape. Even the most prominent firm, the Mount Hope Nursery, dissolved abruptly after the sudden death of William Barry in 1916. The next generation of owners completed the transition into a real estate firm by committing all efforts to lay out streets, homes, and schools at the southern end of the city. Ultimately, the industrialization of Rochester gutted much of the city's horticultural legacy.