GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 



OF AMERICA 



DEVOTED TO THE SCIENCE OF FLORICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE 



ADOPTED AS THE OFFICIAL ORGAN OF 

 THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GARDENERS ( 



Vol. XVII. 



MARCH, 1914. 



No. 5. 



"He that feels not the beauty and blessedness and peace of the woods and meadows that God hath bedecked ivith Howers 

 for him even while he is yet a sinner, how shall he learn to enjoy the unfading bloom of the celestial country if he ever 

 become a saint? 



"No, no, sir, he that dcparteth out of this world without perceiving that it is fair and full of innocent s-iVeetness hath 

 done little honour to the every-day miracles of divine beneficence; and though by mercy he may obtain an entrance to 

 heaven it zi'ill be a strange place to him; and though he have studied all that is written in men's books of divinity yet be- 

 cause he hath left the book of Nature unturned he will have much to learn and much to forget. Do you think that to 

 be blind to the beauties of earth prepareth the heart to behold the glories of heaven?" —Henry Van Dyke. 



Profession of Gardening a High Calling 



By Dr. W. S. Whitemore. 



I consider the profession of gardener one of the noblest 

 that tames the intellect of man. I will try to prove that 

 assertion, and I am therefore obliged to draw compari- 

 sons with other professions in order to make my declara- 

 tion tenable. I have, therefore, taken for my theme, 

 ■'Is the gardener a luxury or a necessity?" the answer 

 to which will serve to place him where he properly be- 

 longs, or else my claim falls to the ground. 



What is a luxury? Anything indulged in for pleasure 

 or gratification — not from necessity. Does the gardener 

 come within the pale of this definition? Let us see. In 

 what is he engrossed ? In the production of the useful 

 and the beautiful. Luxuries are not always useful, neither 

 are they always beautiful, especially those luxuries which 

 are classed as extravagance or excessive indulgence in 

 the gratification of appetite, or in the pleasure of the 

 table, such as rich and expensive diet, or costly dress or 

 equipage. These are indulgences and cannot be classed 

 with the useful or the beautiful. The product of the 

 gardeners is both useful and beautiful. Therefore neither 

 he nor his creations can be classed as luxuries. 



It is the ideal of the gardener today to make every man 

 and woman potential contributors to horticultural and 

 floricultural science, so that they will so appreciate their 

 aims, their demands and their limitations that they shall 

 find the road open if they please to enter this domain, 

 and if they may not actively ])articipate, they may still 

 sympathize with and encourage the efforts of the gar- 

 dener, and know the fruit of the tree of knowledge when 

 it falls at their feet. The seed, the root, the stem, the bud, 

 prepare through long weeks for the burst of the bloom, 

 when with incredible swiftness the flower unfolds. So 

 the flower of human knowledge and human achievement 

 at long intervals unfolds its beauties with incredible swift- 

 ness, the sudden fruition of many 5'ears of preparation. 

 Happy are those who live to see the glory of the garden. 

 Parasitology studies, in cell growth, and transplantation. 



are some of the products of the growth of horticulture 

 and floriculture in the last few years of the last century, 

 and in the beginning of this, that has amazed and made 

 us marvel ; but as the gardener by his devices has learned 

 to wrest the fruits of the earth from her bosom, so is he 

 seeking to keep the tree of knowledge in eternal bloom, 

 that agriculture, horticulture and floriculture may be the 

 ideal of his profession. The impulses, ambition, short- 

 comings and limitations the gardener shares with man- 

 kind in general ; but their profession they idealize and 

 individualize. Their profession holds a foremost position 

 among all professions and among all callings. Their op- 

 portunities and productions are unique. No class of men 

 have appealed to the imagination when swayed by its 

 tenderest, pitying impulse like the gardener. The stern 

 necessity for cold logic, a judicial mind and an exacting 

 accuracy of technic may and often must banish for the 

 moment the play of emotions, but the nobler of these 

 attributes, the love for the flower, will always awaken in 

 the heart a sympathetic refrain, and we forget our care 

 and trouble and our better lives open in response to their 

 beauty. 



Some day — we hope at no very distant date — the 

 evolution of society must realize that the gardener is 

 an absolute necessity and his efforts will be better 

 understood and appreciated. 



What is this great jiroiluction of the gardener that 

 strikes such a sympathetic strain in the hearts of the peo- 

 ple? The flowers. And why? A flower is like the sun. 

 It shines on a world that would be dark without it, and 

 its brightness is as that of love. The astronomer with his 

 great .scientific knowledge can span the illimitable space 

 and determine the distance of the sun and the stars, but 

 we cannot look with familiar love on the far bright stars 

 or lay our warm clasp on the dear beauty of the sunset 

 clouds. The artist with his magic touch has given us the 

 Erlorious creations that are beautiful and grand, but we 



