542 AVERY, JR. 



cultivation; yet, curiously, such subject matter is almost universally missing 

 from botany curriculums. 



What challenging opportunities lie ahead for botanists and botanic 

 GARDENS? Our industrial economy and resultant urban living have freed the 

 greater part of the population from the endless chores that once kept most 

 people from pursuing cultural interests. The forty-hour (Saturday-free) week 

 coupled with laborsaving gadgets and greater average income have produced 

 so much leisure that millions sit by the hour watching television. Granted, 

 some of it is excellent, but God help us as a nation and individually if TV 

 gets more than its share of people's leisure time. TV provides entertainment 

 of a passive sort, but it is debatable whether it can build or maintain a culture 

 or create constructive tradition. In short, increasing freedom from gainful 

 occupation has brought us into the midst of a social revolution that could 

 easily lead to cultural impoverishment. 



One of the factors determining what can be done in leisure time is the 

 limitation of available space. This applies particularly to dwellers in cities 

 and towns (which includes most of us). The lover of wilderness or the active 

 sportsman needs open country to indulge his hobby. He must go where he 

 can find it and often spend endless and tiring hours getting there and home 

 again. People who are fortunate enough to have discovered the enjoyment of 

 ornamental plants can have exercise, creative experiences, and all the riches of 

 a continuing hobby right in their own dooryards or apartments, whether 

 large or small. 



People are interested in plants in their own particular ways and will seek 

 popular courses that seem to offer opportunities for expanding their grasp 

 of a subject. Let a person collect three or four varieties of African violet, and 

 with the addition of a fifth he becomes a collector. He is a candidate for a 

 popular course in house plants. Similarly, a few years' experience with the 

 use of young forest trees in a "foundation planting'' makes the intelligent 

 home owner ready and eager for a course in landscaping. 



What if most Americans could recognize 100 or more fine ornamental plants 

 and know most of them really well? What if they knew how to grow them 

 to the peak of perfection in their gardens and use them to landscape their 

 homes and towns in good taste? And what if they knew at least the key trees 

 of the forests and plants of the roadside and something of their natural 

 succession? Such knowledge and the greater appreciation of nature that would 

 come with it would be a worthy step in broadening the base of American 

 culture. 



The leadership and greatest impetus for the development of this phase 

 of our cultural life is now coming from more than 500,000 members of Garden 

 Clubs all over the U.S.A. — eager amateurs who are, in effect, trying to help 

 America along the road to a pattern of maturity. If botanists could help to 

 give leadership that would make possible the broad realization of such aims, 



