The Spy Who Loved Apples: The Double Life of Metcalf Bowler
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
September 24, 1789
Dear fellow custodians of earth's verdant secrets, today we unearth a tale that would make even the most steadfast gardener's trowel tremble - a story of apples, espionage, and the most exquisite garden in Rhode Island.
On this day, we mark the passing of Metcalf Bowler, a man whose life reads like a novel penned by both Capability Brown and John le Carré.
Who would have thought that behind the elegant facade of Rhode Island's most celebrated garden lurked a tale of Revolutionary intrigue?
Picture, if you will, a gentleman farmer whose horticultural pursuits were so successful that his garden was whispered to be the most beautiful in all of Rhode Island.
Such was his understanding of cultivation that he became the champion of what we now know as the Rhode Island Greening Apple - a fruit so exceptional it would later be crowned the official state fruit.
But beneath the blooms and between the espaliered fruit trees, a most fascinating secret took root. For our dear Metcalf, operating under the rather apropos code name "Rusticus" (how deliciously fitting for a gardener!), was secretly corresponding with the British during the Revolutionary War.
Imagine the scene: while tending to his beloved gardens, perhaps pruning his celebrated apple trees, this refined horticulturist was cultivating something far more dangerous than roses - information for the Crown!
The irony, dear readers, reaches full bloom in his authorship of A Treatise on Agriculture and Practical Husbandry in 1786 that he should send a copy to George Washington himself!
One can only wonder if Washington, while placing this volume in his library, had any inkling of the author's divided loyalties.
It wasn't until the 1920s that historians, like gardeners uncovering an unexpected bulb, stumbled upon letters that revealed Bowler's true nature.
Through careful examination of handwriting - much like one might study the veining of a leaf - they unveiled his secret allegiance.
The war may have stripped Bowler of his merchant fortune, but oh, what a garden he must have had!
One cannot help but wonder if his horticultural sanctuary provided solace as he balanced precariously between two worlds.
Let us remember Metcalf Bowler not just as a spy, but as a man who, despite his divided loyalties, contributed significantly to American pomology and garden design.
After all, is not every garden a keeper of secrets, every gardener a curator of mysteries?