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Roscoe Alfred Fillmore (July 10, 1887-1968) was a Canadian social activist and horticulturalist. He wrote extensively about the Communist movement throughout his life, meanwhile enjoying a career as a gardener and plant breeder in Nova Scotia. His Green Thumbs: The Canadian gardening book (1953) remained in print for more than ten years.

New Brunswick
He was born in the rural community of Lumsden, Albert County, New Brunswick, the son of Willard Fillmore, a lumberman and labourer. As a child, he observed paternalism among certain of his father's employers, which affected his outlook on the distribution of wealth. At age 16, he left school and went to Portland, Maine where his grandmother lived and there he found work as a labourer. He also discovered his first calling as a socialist when he heard Rev. George Littlefield, a Massachusetts preacher and member of the newly-formed Socialist Party of America, speak on the subject of socialism. He quickly became a proselytizer himself. As he later wrote, “To me [Socialism] means a decent way to believe and live, and for a long time I was obsessed with the idea that all we had to do was explain its meaning to people and they would immediately begin to work and vote for the co-operative society. Alas, youth and its enthusiasms.” After a year-and-a-half in Portland, Fillmore returned to Albert where for a time he resumed his schooling, now reading deeply into philosophy. In 1905 his father purchased a plant nursery in Albert, New Brunswick, established in 1860 by Agreen Tingley. There, the younger Fillmore learned the basics of horticulture. He left school in grade 11 and "Great Harvest Excursion" eventually obtained work for the wealthy lawyer and politician Arthur Reid Slipp in Burton, New Brunswick, running Slipp’s large commercial apple orchard for nine years. While he would work for slipp for nine years, their competing political interests gradually interfered with their relationship, Slipp's conservatism clashing with Fillmore’s socialism.

Siberia
As an agricultural worker, Fillmore was exempt from war service. He was nonetheless deeply affected by the war.

By 1919, Fillmore was a seasoned advocate of communism and he was in Amherst in the spring of 1919 helping to inspire workers to strike. The Amherst General Strike took place in xxx.

By now married, in 1923 Fillmore took a leave of absence from the Slipp orchard and travelled alone to Russia to work at the Kuzbass Autonomous Industrial Colony in Siberia. There he worked for one year to develop a horticultural program for the nascent Soviet workers’ community.

Nova Scotia
When he returned to New Brunswick, Slipp was no longer interested in employing Fillmore. Thus, in 1924, Fillmore moved to Centreville in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley where friends had suggested conditions were ripe to spread the socialist gospel. in Centreville, he met regularly with several like minded socialists including Charles Macdonald. In 1945, he ran unsuccessfully as a member of the Farmer-Labour party in the 1945 provincial election.

In xxx, he accepted a post with the Dominion Atlantic Railway as horticulturist for the Grand-Pré National Historic Site. The seventeen-acre park had been established on an early Acadian settlement of Grand Pre to commemorate the Expulsion of the Acadians in 1755.

Maritime Gardener
He first discovered the power of radio when started advertising his plant nursery on a local station in Kentville. By the early 1950's he had become so well known and was fielding so many gardening inquiries, he decided to publish a book, Green Thumbs: The Canadian gardening book (1953). Green Thumbs was was one of the earliest gardening books aimed at a Canadian audience. The first was xxx by Annie Jack of Montreal. He followed it up with four other books over the next xx years.

Between xxx and xxx, he hosted The Maritime Gardener, a popular weekly show on the CBC Radio which was broadcast from its Halifax studios.

Recognition and legacy
The Canadian and Ontario Nursery Trades Associations recognized him as one of 24 "Great Canadians in Horticulture" in 1967.

His son Frank Fillmore, and grandson Nick Fillmore were co-founders of The 4th Estate in Halifax, an alternate weekly newspaper (1969-1978).

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Publications

 * Green Thumbs, Ryerson, 1953

Mens magazines
Through his company Douglas Publishing, he published the glossy mens' magazine Topper in an effort to compete with Playboy, eventually reaching sales of xxx copies per month. The publication ran for 240 issues (January 1961 - December 1980). He also published another mens' magazine called Escapade (1955 to xxx). He is currently president of Eton Publishing Co., Inc. in New York, publisher of Velvet magazine.

Books
Bee Line published pulp "adult" titles such as

Pinnacle books became "one of the few consistent self-selling successes in publishing" by focusing on the production of action-adventure serial novels, at one time releasing 37 titles per month.

In 19xx he commissioned the journalist John Dean to write House of Evil: The Indiana Torture Slaying. The book sold 55,000 copies in its original edition.

He sold his trade paperbacks division, Citadel and Pinnacle to Michigan General Corporation in 1973. He remained president of the new company, Pinnacle Books Inc. and also retained management of Bee-Line.

Influence
Charles Neutel has stated about Zentner, "Just about every professional [writers and editors] in the field has gone through his offices, insofar as working directly for him or selling stuff to him. He was for some difficult to work with; for others simply a problem to work around. He was tough. He helped a lot of people become professionals."