THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



719 



AMERICAN GARDENS— NOT GROWN IGNO- 



RANTLY, BUT WITH KNOWLEDGE 



OF CONDITIONS. 



(From New York Times.) 



Editor, New York Times: — 



In the magazine section of last Sunday's Times ap- 

 peared an article entitled "(_)ur Apathy to Gardens As- 

 tounds English Expert," quoting a Airs. Philip Marti- 

 neau, of England, as saying that our greatest drawback 

 in America is ignorance. She referred to our apparent 

 backwardness in horticulture and floriculture as com- 

 pared with the interest manifested in them in her country. 



This lady from abroad, with her mission to teach us, 

 does an injustice in charging us with ignorance and 

 shows herself to be quite uninformed on American horti- 

 cultural conditions. It is quite generally agreed among 

 leading men engaged in commercial and private growing, 

 and a large percentage of them are of her own kin, well 

 posted on horticulture at home and broad, that, long, long 

 before this young nation attains the age of good old Eng- 

 land American liorticulturc will be far advanced over 

 what it is found to be even in England today. 



We are told that we can grow some plants more suc- 

 cessfully than they can be grown in England. It was 

 demonstrated at our International Flower Show, held in 

 New York City last April, and conceded by our visitors, 

 well-known growers from various foreign lands, that 

 never in Europe were such beautiful flowers and specimen 

 plants seen as we exhibited at this show. 



She credits as a mistaken American idea that it re- 

 quires five centuries of rolling to make a perfect turf, but 

 this is a purely English fallacy, .\mericans think nothing 

 of acquiring a five hundred or a thousand acre tract of 

 wilderness, and within two or three years converting it 

 into a magnificent estate of beautiful lawns and gardens. 

 In the State of New Hampshire at the present time seven 

 thousand acres are being developed under the direction 

 of one of our leading practical gardeners. A force of over 

 six hundred men is emploved. and it will be but several 

 years before this land will become a completed country 

 estate. The beautiful Huntington estate in lower Cali- 

 fornia was transformed through the ingenuity of a prac- 

 tical gardener in the brief space of a few years from an 

 arid plain into a fertile land of beautiful plants and 

 flowers. 



Our amateur friend from abroad asserts that the great- 

 est mistake people make in this country is in leaving 

 things too much in the hands of the gardener ; that his 

 fine senses have not been trained, etc., etc. Here she 

 again shows lack of knowledge on .\merican horticultural 

 conditions, for tlie mistake is quite contrary to what she 

 charges. The private estate owners in this country, un- 

 like British owners of private estates, entrust too little 

 to their gardeners and de])end too much on so called 

 "landscapers" and other "experts" imbued with many 

 theories, but entirely devoid of practical experience. 

 Thousands of dollars are annually squandered by the 

 wealthv in the laving out of private places on plans and 

 suggestions furnished b\' these "experts" and when the 

 work is completed the ]iractical gardener is called on to 

 try to cultivate harmony out of the chaos developed by the 

 theorist. 



Many of the so-called "experts," or "horticultural au- 

 thorities" have no more actual experience behind them 

 than the cityite we occasionally read of, who, becopiing 

 a suburbanite, buys a few packets of seeds and plants a 

 garden. Nature from the outset is good to him and pro- 

 duces a fine crop. He immediately becomes possessed of 



the notion that he has discovered his right vocation#and 

 becomes a farmer : but nothing but failure follows. 



Lady landscapers or floriculturists who have obtained 

 commissions for work on private estates are not uncom- 

 mon in this country, and some of thein are of accredited 

 ability; but Mrs. Martineau has been somewhat more 

 fortunate than her sisters in having a clever publicity 

 promoter active in her behalf. Her departure from 

 abroad, her arrival in this country and her undertakings 

 since her arrival have been cleverly heralded. Much has 

 been written respecting her in New York dailies and in 

 those of other cities, and it would be interesting to read 

 a year hence what her actual achievements were in this 

 country, for her nnich exploited work on a small portion 

 of an already well developed estate in Brookline, Mass., 

 is being watched with interest by those engaged in horti- 

 cultural pursuits. 



A good field may await our English ainateur friend to 

 expound her theories among amateur garden clubs in 

 various parts of the L'nited States, but does she possess 

 sufficient practical experience and knowledge of the vari- 

 able climatic conditions in this country to have her ad- 

 vise authoritatively ? It is not unusual to find certain 

 plants do well in one section which will not thrive at all 

 one hundred miles away. Still her theories may prove 

 both interesting and entertaining to parlor gatherings. 



This English lady confesses that her interest in gar- 

 dening dates back no more than twelve years and that 

 her experience has been limited entirely to that of an 

 amateur. Yet she comes to this country to undertake to 

 advise against practical inen whose experiences in gar- 

 dening have been lifelong, many of whom commenced 

 their careers as students on some of the old English es- 

 tates she tells us about. Two of them within the past 

 week showed their skill at the fall flower show of the 

 Horticultural Society of New York in the cultivation of 

 specimen plants never equaled anywhere. Similar plants 

 were exhibited a year ago, of a lesser size and beauty, and 

 were later described abroad to some English horticultur- 

 ists who doubted the possibility of such creations until 

 the pltotographs were produced. Such gardeners as 

 those referred to are not alone efficient as skillful growers, 

 but in every phase of their profession, including the 

 ■■esthetic as well as the cruder elements which enter into 

 gardening". 



While it is true that production is still of a greater 

 magnitude in most European countries than it is in .\mer- 

 ica. nevertheless the progress in horticulture which has 

 been made in this country during the past decade places 

 America in the front ranks in the cultivation, as regards 

 (]uality and beauty, of all that is worth while in either 

 horticulture or floriculture. 



.\merican estate owners are rapidly realizing that the- 

 oretical knowledge without practical experience is an un- 

 productive quality and are consequently placing more 

 faith in the professional gardener, who is capable of com- 

 bining theory with practice. .And they are also learning 

 that in the profession of gardening there is a decided 

 distinction between the real gardener and the so-called 

 gardener. M. C. Ebel, 



Secretary National Association of Gardeners. 



Madison, N. J.', November 11. 1913. 



TIic foregoing (■oiimiunioatinn wliicli appeared in tlie New York 

 Times recently m.iy he recrnnled as a much exaggerated missive 

 l),v .some of our Knglisli friends, but it is no more so than was 

 the contribution to the Thiirs by an Englisli amateur in which 

 she assailed the ability of the gardeners in America, and charged 

 the backwaidiicss in .\merican horticulture as due to the lack 

 of aliility on the part of our gardeners. —The Editor. 



