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GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 



frequently get letters from the instructors at the colleges asking if 

 we have a place to put one of their young men in charge of. 

 We seldom get any inquiries from them for assistant positions. 



Mr. Downer, of University of Illinois, at Chicago convinced 

 those who heard him that the training of gardeners in colleges 

 was a good thing. Up to that time I was very much opposed 

 to it. Today I even believe that a man ought to get a couple 

 of years of practical experience first before entering college, 

 get down to hard work, and then he will know what it is. Mr. 

 Downer said at that time, "We sometimes give men diplomas not 

 because we think they ought to have them, but because they 

 get a certain per cent and we are compelled to give them." 



He said if a man comes with a diploma from Illinois College, 

 and says he is able to do that or this, and when you write to 

 the instructor, the instructor may tell you that the boy would 

 liave done much better if he had turned to other work. Not 

 many colleges are as frank as that. 



1 "was up at Rockfeller's some years ago and a gardener was 

 telling me he had some men from Cornell. When the men 

 came, he put them to work on the manure pile and they said, 

 "We didn't come here for that. We came here to direct. We 

 are above that." They come from college and feel they are 

 all ready to direct, but they have had no practical e.xperience. 



MR. BARNET: I agree with Mr. Ebel. My idea was in 

 regard to emphasizing the fact that we should co-operate with 

 the colleges. .\s President of the Pittsburgh Florist Club 

 I have the responsibility of recommending to the college pro- 

 fessors how they should go about this thing. It was done once 

 in Massachusetts, and we were told that it was no business of ours. 

 I want to go on record here as advocating this co-operation. It 

 is not going to do either of us any harm. 



MR. JUDSON: If we are going to interest young men to 

 become interested in gardening, I think it is up to us to get 

 hold of boys and put them on as apprentices. After they have 

 served an apprenticeship, they might be interested in running 

 private places. After he has gone through those hard knocks, 

 and he will probably meet with plenty of them, he will then have 

 a different attitude of life altogether. He will be of a different 

 age then, and if he desires, he can take up theoretical training 

 coupled with something more practical. 



I think the college attitude, while it is right to a certain 

 e-xtent, is not right altogether, I don't think they ought to take a 

 man until he is twenty-one, after he has completed three or four 

 years of good, sound, hard, practical training from the wheel- 

 barrow up. 



It reverts back on the system. The system is w'rong. We 

 don't want these trained fellows trained through colleges. To 

 a certain extent that is right, but if he does have the selection 

 after he is twenty-one, he will then see the error of a good 

 many things that he had to do from the beginning, sec improved 

 ways, and will lind out for himself what a different mind he has 

 when he is above twenty-one years of age. 



I don't believe the botanical gardens would take him in before 

 he is twenty-one. I had hve years before of pretty good hard 

 work. I saw those years helped me wonderfully. I came out 

 with a good big swelled head, but after some years, I had a 

 different attitude on life and the profession. 



MR. McCULLOCH : There are one or two questions I 

 would like to ask the Secretary, in regard to the work not being 

 suitable for a college trained man who is tired of dirtying his 

 hands. The young men of the present day don't wish to take 

 a course in practical training on private estates. I have tried 

 some of them and have started them into work like taking 

 out weeds on the golf greens. As soon as I would turn my 

 back they would throw their tools down. All they were interested 

 in was growing the money. That is the case with most young 

 men. The\' don't seem to want to take up the gardener's oc- 

 cupation at the present time. They are all looking for larger 

 money and the college bred student is afraid of dirtying his 

 hands. Where are we going to get the young men f roin ? 



MR. CAMERON : This has been quite interesting, but I 

 think we cannot afford to close this session and let men go 

 out feeling that college men are useless. I think a good deal 

 of it depends upon the boy. It is the boy probably who has 

 no interest in the business. Possibly the florist thinks his son 

 should be a gardener, but the boy has no interest. If we 

 get the right boys interested, I have no doubt they will be willing 

 to work. 



I don't think we ought to run down tlie college training. 

 It is not altogether the fault of the colleges. The parents are 

 at fault. They are causing the boys to to think they are adapted 

 to something higher. It is not the boys' fault. You have to 

 go back to the- parents. Seventy-five per cent, possibly twenty-five 

 per cent, of these uninterested boys, is enough to overthrow 

 the whole thing. 



I think we ought to advise every boy who wants to become 

 a gardener to get his theoretical experience, along with his 

 practical experience. This Association cannot afford to throw 

 down the colleges. 



MR. PRING: I am very pleased to hear Mr. Lameron's 

 remarks. It would be a big mistake for this Association to go 

 on record as being against the college trained men. The time 

 will come when the majority of positions will be filled by the 

 trained man. I am not theoretically trained. I am in a position 

 where I am brought in contact with the more practically trained 

 men. 



My boys — I have three — want to follow up the horticulture 

 or floriculture profession and the various branches. The uni- 

 versities or colleges now lack the practical facilities, to a certain 

 extent. They are trying to overcome this by building green- 

 houses, etc. They are trying to .give the students floriculture. 

 The farmers are talking about the hoys being farmers trained 

 at colleges. They laugh at the idea, but you will find just the 

 same, when their sons grow up they want them to go to college, 

 and they make, in the long run, the best farmers. They can 

 get the iTiost out of their land, larger crops, just because they 

 know the systematic rotation of crops, and they know just what 

 fertilizer will bring the vegetation out. 



MR. GR.\Y : I have had a college graduate on my place this 

 year, a boy working his way through college. It seems to me 

 the sentiment among the gardeners is not against the college, 

 but against the idea that gets into the young men's heads at 

 college. This young man I mentioned says that the college 

 gives the young man the distinction over the practical man, and 

 he commands about three thousand a year when he comes out 

 of that college over the practical man. That is probably what 

 those young fellows are looking for, and when we ask them 

 to learn the business under a practical man, they don't want to 

 do it, and they won't do it. 



MR. M.\CKINTOSH: I don't think any of us are knocking 

 a college education. How-ever, I advocate getting the practical 

 side first. One of my boys got the practical side before he went 

 to the university. After he graduated from the University he 

 was elected to represent the State of Minnesota. I know the 

 college education ; I advocate it, and I think it is about the best 

 thing a man can give his children, but you don't want to give 

 them too much theory and not enough practice. 



PRESIDENT CR-\IG: I did not have the opportunity of 

 going to college myself. I left school when I was fourteen. 

 I think the botanical training as well as the college training is 

 necessary for the man who in the future is going to preside 

 over a fair-sized private estate. 



I have three boys left, and I sent one to .\mherst College a 

 Couple of weeks ago. I think he will eventually make good in 

 private gardening or some branch of horticulture. There are 

 four or five other boys going to that college this year, some 

 of whom have had soine training under me. They may not 

 all become private gardeners, but the information they get there 

 will be of vast importance to them in the future. 



I think there is too much of this everlasting knocking of 

 colleges by men who know very little of the training received 

 there. I have asked men to go to Amherst to take a short course 

 for a few weeks in the Winter, and they said in every case that 

 they would be glad to do it. It broadens their minds and gives 

 them things to think aliout that they had no idea of before. You 

 can't expect a fully trained gardener from a college man who 

 goes there only a short time. 



If there is no further discussion, we will pass on to the next 

 subject, report of the Committee on School Gardens. 



. . . There was nothing from this Committee . . . 



The next is the Cominittee on Quarantine No. 37. 



Report of the Committee on Quarantine 37 



The work of Quarantine Committee No. 37 for the past year 

 was rather awkward. Much of its efforts to secure modifica- 

 tions were "in the dark'' so to speak, as it was compelled at the 

 time to keep what it was doing secret. It united in the meeting 

 composed of the different societies and called by the horticultural 

 societies of New York, Massachusetts and Peimsylvania, to com- 

 bine in securing modifications of the Bill. 



Shortly after, the Committee ,w-as approached by a number of 

 prominent estate owners to work with them, and the services 

 of a prominent lawyer was secured, without expense to the as- 

 sociation, who had a number of conferences with Dr. Marlatt, 

 Chairman of the Federal Horticultural Board. For a while it 

 appeared as though we were going to get some worth while 

 modifications, but at the end nothing was accomplished. It was 

 then decided to have a test case in court, but this was also later 

 abandoned, owing to the opinion of several lawyers that nothing 

 would be secured from it. 



The Committee has done nothing recently, it is simply awaiting 

 developments. There are plans on foot by other organizations 

 to carrv the work on to secure a modification of Quarantine 

 Bill No; 37. 



PRESIDENT CRAIG: Is there anything to be said on this 

 question. 



