He was the son of horticulturist
William Prince and Mary Stratton. He was educated at
Jamaica Academy, Long Island, and at
Boucherville,
Canada. He imported the first
merino sheep into the United States in 1816, continued the “
Linnaean nurseries” of his father, and was the first to introduce
silk culture and the
Morus multicaulis for
silk worms in 1837, but lost a large fortune by this enterprise, owing to the change in the
tariff, which destroyed this industry for several years. The troubles of the business obligated him to mortgage the Linnaean nurseries, and for a time control of them passed to Gabriel Winter, his brother-in-law. There was a printed dispute with the new owner to which the family attributed the death of his father. Prince eventually regained control of the nurseries. In 1849 he went to
California, was a founder of
Sacramento, and in 1851 traveled through
Mexico. He introduced the culture of
osiers and
sorghum in 1854/5, and the
Chinese yam in 1854. Just before the
American Civil War, he passed control of the nurseries on to his sons. They finally elected not to continue in it, and the nurseries were sold at the end of the war. Spiritualism and the preparation of patent medicines were major occupations of his after he retired from the nursery business. ==Works==