544 AVERY, JR. 



vital program in popular education should be eager to employ such people 

 and get under way with a dynamic program. 



The suggestion here is simple enough. Botanic gardens and botany depart- 

 ments in the colleges should team up, with the avowed goal of making botani- 

 cal education not only popular but available to everybody! The content of 

 the short courses offered by the gardens must be matched to the current or 

 potential interests of the people who take them. A wide range of courses 

 should be tried out, and those that do not "take" quickly scrapped. Realistic 

 guidance can be sought by asking amateur horticulturists what at first sight 

 might seem to be naive testimonials, such as "what plants have meant to 

 me," or "what I am doing with plants," or "some of my finest experiences with 

 plants." Geraldine Farrar ^ in "What My Garden Means to Me" has given 

 interesting hints for those shaping a meaningful pattern for botanic gardens 

 for the future. 



Conclusion. We botanists have not even begun to live up to our responsi- 

 bilities to contemporary society. We are molding potentially professional 

 students after our own pattern, seemingly oblivious to the trends of our time. 

 Why should we limit our thinking to the strictly traditional field of botany? 

 Botanic gardens, like public libraries, are needed by the thousands if only 

 they can have dynamic programs. We ought to be busy formulating the 

 ways and means for making available a new socially slanted botany — for the 

 education and enjoyment of all. Then we should hastily set about training 

 personnel to accomplish this. Only with a timely and well-thought-out pro- 

 gram can botanists hope to make a significant contribution to American 

 culture. 



^ Published in Horticulture for October, 1952. Reprinted in Plants & Gardens 

 1952(4) :304-305. 



