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Gardening as a Profession 



By Arthur Smith. 



At the meeting of members held on April 7 at Xew 

 York, a speaker made a remark to the effect that mone\- 

 is the principal thing we are after. To this I venture to 

 protest for I believe that to the majorit}' of estate super- 

 intendents and private gardeners their work is a labor of 

 love and that they live for their profession. This love 

 for our work of itself, apart from the necessity of living 

 by it and what it brings to us in the shape of dollars, is 

 the greatest force in keeping us going and the incentive 

 to putting forth our best efforts. Our profession is, like 

 all others, not exempt from the proverbial black sheep, 

 but I think that most of us are above graft and are con- 

 tent to leave this to politicians, and such like. We hav€ 

 to deal in our life's work with higher things than the 

 manipulation of contracts for a rake off and the obtaining 

 of money through irregular proceeds and bribery. 



Of course I do not for a moment suggest that the 

 speaker whose remark is alluded to had the remotest idea 

 of giving encouragement to, or suggesting the practice of. 

 graft ; but as the profession cannot be said to be entirely 

 free from grafters, it would have been better had the 

 statement been qualified. 



A diillar in one's pocket is very necessary, but to most 

 of us self-respect is considered a greater asset, and it has 

 been well said that "the poorest people in the world are 

 those with money and nothing else." Everything great 

 that has been done or produced in the world has been 

 brought about by following up a line of work, an ideal, 

 for its own sake, and the money that has sometimes come 

 at the end has been a secondary consideration. Unfor- 

 tunately for the 'country men who have worked along 

 these lines have been conspicuous by their fewness. Not 

 what we are nor what we stand for, but what we can 

 make, has been too much the measure of individual 

 conduct. The prevailing American idea of getting rich 

 quickly is no doubt the principal reason why .so few 

 .\mericans follow oin* profession and accounts for the 

 fact that ninety-five per cent, of head gardeners and 

 estate managers have come from Europe where estate 

 management and gardening have reached the highest 

 point of efficiency. It requires a good deal of i)atience, 

 in more ways than one, to be a gardener; this virtue be- 

 ing conspicuous by its absence in this country. People 

 who expect results at once are not likely to have much 

 desire to deal with things like plants which build up their 

 structure cell by cell during a more or less extended 

 period of time. 



The wide-spread scramble after wealth at any cost, 

 and the prevailing worship of the almighty dollar, has 

 from time to lime brilliant exceptions of which a very 

 notable one recently happened when a well known plant 

 pathologist working in the Bureau of Plant Industry for 

 $4,000 a \ear refused an offer of $10,000 a year from 

 Rockefeller. 



To live, it is of course necessary to have dollars, and 

 we have to live by our work, but, if we cultivate a true 

 professional spirit and make our work a labor of love 

 and live for it, I do not think there is likely to be much 

 trouble about the former. 



In connection with the main train of thought suggested 

 above, a quotation from one of Whittier's poems may be 

 considered appropriate : 



Give fools their gold and knaves their power, 

 Let fortune's bubble rise and fall. 

 Who sows a seed and trains a flower. 

 Or plants a tree, is more than all. 



The word "profession" has been used because it is 

 essentiallv ap])licable to our work as much as it is to, for 

 instance, that of a doctor. To become at all expert in 

 our profession one should give as much study to scientific 

 principles as a doctor has to before he is allowed to prac- 

 tice his. A\'e have to know something, and the more the 

 better, of chemistry, botany, geology, entomology, etc., 

 upon which the principles of a.griculture, horticulture 

 and sylviculture are based and without such knowledge 

 we cannot know the liow and the why of what we ilo. 

 It has been well said that "The Key of Progress is hidden 

 in a question mark. Why? How?" To obtain the 

 greatest possibilities out of anything everything possilile 

 must be known about it. and it is only through the re- 

 searches of scientific men who have devoted their lives 

 to the subject that we know anything of the why and the 

 how connected with the intimate and intricate relation- 

 ship between the soil and the plant. The true scientist 

 will be the first to admit that he does not know every- 

 thing that is to be learned and although he is yearly ad- 

 vancing towards that end. yet at the same time every 

 step forward seems only to open up wider fields requir- 

 ing to be explored. In this connection we find, as a rule, 

 that the best informed man is the one who realizes his 

 ignorance. 



Presuming for the moment that a knowledge of these 

 scientific principles can lie obtained at college, is a man ir 



