470 



GARDENERS' CHROMCLE 



Consider the Gardener 



What He Should Be and What He Often Is— His Rightful 

 Relations to His Work and Employer 



ELLEN P. CUNNINGHAM in House and Garden 



IX America today, unless the gardens are of the in- 

 timate form and size in which many of our colonial 

 ancestors and later such enthusiasts as Celia Thax- 

 ter joyed to labor, the ubiquitous pest of which not 

 even a quarantine ruling- of the Federal Board of 

 Horticulture can rid (.>ur Edens is the labor problem. 

 Gardens may have to be simplified, if they are too 

 large for the sole care of the owner, because a wealth 

 of literature and visits to perfected old-world gar- 

 dens have stimulated taste beyond the physical power 

 to apply it. How can we escape the wilderness un- 

 less more skilled gardeners come to the rescue? 



\Miatever the nationality of workers at present 

 listed on the family tree as gardeners, they may ap- 

 parently be anyone shouldering a shovel as a symbol. 

 The dictionary justifies this classification, for it de- 

 fines "to garden" as not only "to lay out, to prepare, 

 to cultivate land as a garden, to practice horticulture," 

 but "to labor in a garden." So "gardener" is inter- 

 preted in various human forms. 



We have found that a gardener may be an untrained 

 day laborer who ignoranth- follows or fails to follow 

 directions as he pleases, possibly weeding out even 

 rose bu.shes without prick of thorn or conscience and 

 hoeing up the precious self-sown seeds. He may be a 

 sporadic worker — perhaps a Norwegian sailing-master, 

 driven to shore tasks by the sinking of so mnay of 

 his country's ships during the war, and who climbs 

 down from a painter's ladder patiently to extract 

 miniature bulbs from the sod where they have be- 

 come naturalized. Or there is the odd-job man wdio 

 with a little general knowledge and experience con- 

 tracts to care for a place by the season, but who takes 

 no special interest in any particular one, as his atten- 

 tion is distracted by the claims of other places. 



Then we have the resident handy man \\ho serves 

 as bathing master in the Summer and caretaker in 

 the Winter, working in the gardening incompletel}- — 

 for when some flowers are missed from the beds, they 

 are found lying indoors in their original packets. 

 . . Finallv. there is the chauffeur gardener, 

 who is likely to be called at any moment from the in- 

 tricacies of mechanics to those of horticulture. Fortu- 

 nate are the flowers if he is country-bred, and to be 

 pitied if he has been raised in the city. 



In some places the old family gardener still exists, 

 perhaps too illiterate to read or properly pronounce 

 the names of the flowers with which he works such 

 wonders, and skeptical of everything in print, declar- 

 ing that you can put anything in l)ooks but not in 

 gardens — if he can help it ! He respects onh- bought 

 or home-grown plants, ruthlessly destroying, no mat- 

 ter how beautiful they are. all native vegetation 

 which he calls wild, saying self-righteously that he is 

 "a poor hand to save weeds." Seldom visiting flower 

 shows to absorb new ideas, he sees no necessity for 

 replacing old jilants and shrubs with improved new 

 varieties. He has never heard of color schemes, yet 

 by familiarity with local soil, climate and the family 

 taste he is enabled to produce satisfactorj- results of 

 a certain kind, and he is so devoted to his flowers that 

 lie will spend jiortions of even Sundays transplanting 



tiny seedlings with his pen-knife. Surelv such a man 

 can say "I count not hours by dollars, but with 

 flowers." To this class of gardeners we owe a last- 

 ing debt of appreciation for faithful service to the 

 best of their ability. They toiled earl}- and late, in 

 heat and cold, rejoicing in the pleasure of the family 

 as miich as in the beloved flowers. 



Our large estates are especially indebted to the scien- 

 tifically trained private gardeners who have come from 

 England. Scotland, Denmark, Germany, etc.. where a 

 man aspiring to become a superintendent is expected to 

 serve years of a]3prenticeship before assuming the larger 

 responsibilities. 



Why are intelligent, trained private gardeners so 

 scarce? IMr. William N. Craig, President of the Na- 

 tional Association of Gardeners, oiifers several answers. 

 First, that the war has depleted the ranks of gar- 

 deners, as of other professions. Second, that salaries 

 for superintendents have not risen proportionately to 

 I)ay for less skilled Avorkers, and many expert men 

 liave gone into more lucrative occtipations. Third, it 

 is increasingly difficult to recruit the ranks of gar- 

 deners from American boys wdio are unwilling to give 

 so many years to preparing themselves professionally. 



Evidently, if high standards of gardening are to be 

 maintained, more of our j'oung people must be in- 

 terested in scientifically training themselves as horti- 

 culturists and as managers of large and small estates. 

 Nature studv classes and school gardens are awaken- 

 ing special powers of observation and emphasizing 

 the practical value of patience and diligent persever- 

 ance. As the minds of the boys and girk expand, let 

 us further open their eyes to the joyous possibilities 

 of self-expression of outdoor life, before youth is 

 stifled in the commercial confines of the city where, 

 amid the ever-increasing roar of industry, the call of 

 the country is heard too late. Public and private 

 enterprise must combine to throw searchlights on 

 the path to be chosen, revealing the mysteries of 

 science as related to horticulture. Even soil, when 

 discoursed upon bv such a man as Professor Button 

 of the Farmingdale, L. L, State School of Agricul- 

 ture teems with history, science, poetry and religion, 

 as he explains how destinies of nations depend upon 

 the character of their soil, and how, by altering it 

 scientificallv, the trend of civilization is changed. 

 Furthermore, poetrj- and religion draw their inspira- 

 tion from the beauty of bloom issuing from the soil. 



Once the desire to study gardening is created, how 

 is it to be gratified? Glimpses at home and abroad 

 show some of the methods of training gardeners. In 

 Europe there are special schools. In England alone, 

 last Summer, Miss Elizabeth Leighton Lee, Director 

 of the School of Horticulture, for Women at Ambler, 

 Pa., visited a dozen of the many schools for women 

 in Great Britain. On the Continent, familiarity with 

 three modern languages is sometimes required, and 

 a health certificate, as conditions of admission to 

 classes, thvis hinting at the high standards for gar- 

 deners. 



In this country, in addition to the public opportuni- 

 ties offered bv colleges and botanic gardens, the gar- 



