144 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



It is well to go star gazing in autumn and to gaze down- 

 ward for earth stars. All the stars are not in the vaulted firma- 

 ment. We are, ourselves, earth creatures and the earth stars 

 are more comprehensible than the stars of the sky with their 

 sense-dulling distances and magnitudes. But their message is 

 the same, the message of life and wonder. Without wonder 

 life would be little. — Cleveland Plcdndealer . 



TRAINING IN HORTICULTURE 



THIXK that the college bogy has been held up too much. 

 **" I don't believe that a college course at all fits a man for 

 assuming charge of even a small estate. The drawbacks in our 

 agricultural colleges today are, that really practical men are to 

 a large degree lacking. I do not mean to infer that the pro- 

 fessors are not bright, intelligent men; but how many of them 

 have had any great degree of practical horticultural training? 

 When our colleges select men who are first class growers to 

 have charge of their greenhouses and grounds, men who will 

 be free from petty interferances from the more purelv theoret- 

 ical teachers then they will turn out young men who can with 

 greater confidence apply for positions where practical worth is 

 needed. Even then I doubt if such men would be competent 

 to take charge of any position before spending a year or two 

 on some private estate. 



Then we have or may have, competition from another 

 source. I refer now to the so-called landscape gardeners, or 

 architects, as some prefer to call themselves. To some of these, 

 men on a high plane, with a national reputation we would all be 

 ready to doff our hats; but there are now a vertiable flood of 

 these embryo landscape gardeners, female as well as male, 

 being turned loose on suffering humanity. I do not refer for a 

 moment to the jobbing gardener or florist who has the magic 



