June 1. 1918 



H R T I C U L T U E E 



533 



THE GARDENER'S PLACE 



Editor HdKTUTLTrRE: 



RefeVring to an article in Hortuul- 



TriiE. April 27, 1918, entitled The 

 Gardener's Place, I wish to make a 

 lew remarks to the question raised. 

 I will start out by referring back to 

 my early days in America, when I 

 arrived in New York on April 14, 

 1880, from the Island of Saints and 

 Scholars. My age at the time was 27 

 years, and with an intense love of 

 landscape and flowers but not having 

 had a good opportunity in my native 

 home to get a practical insight to the 

 cultivation of many of the improved 

 varieties of flowers, shrubs, etc., ex- 

 cept in our kitchen garden of about 

 one-half acre where I had built in the 

 corner a wild flower garden about 20 

 feet square laid off very artistically 

 and planted with such wild flowers as 

 the primrose, cowslip, crowfoot, wall: 

 flower, phlox, .Johnny-jump-up, violets, 

 etc. For shrubs and vines I used only 

 the woodbine and lilac which I had ar- 

 ranged in one corner so as to form a 

 very cosy spot for me and my chums 

 to read, play and enjoy ourselves in 

 during our leisure hours. And could 

 we grow things in this country as I 

 have grown in dear old Ireland and 

 be able to retain all the sweet and 

 delicate fragrance, what a charm it 

 would be in any collection of hardy 

 shrubs. Well, I am getting away from 

 m>' subject and will retrace my steps 

 to my first experience in this glorious 

 country of ours. I say ours, because 

 the first thing I did after landing was 

 to take out my first papers so as to 

 lose no time in becoming a full-fledged 

 citizen of America, which I became the 

 third year after landing. I have al- 

 ways felt proud of the step taken, and 

 now at my sixty-fifth year am proud 

 to say that I am in position to give to 

 my adopted country both in money 

 and manhood the means at my com- 

 mand to help Uncle Sam in this day 

 of trial and test. While my history 

 as a gardener is by no means elabor- 

 ate, as I have had only two jobs in 

 my thirty-eight years in America, the 

 first three years as a private gardener 

 in Philadelrhia and for the past thirty- 

 five years as landscape gardener to 

 the Norfolk & Western Railway Com- 

 pany with my headquarters at Roan- 

 oke City, Va., I have not allowed my- 

 self to get isolated from the affairs of 

 men of my kind as I always subscribe 

 for good works on matters pertaining 

 to gardening in all its branches. But 

 what got closer to me than anything 

 that has happened during my thirty- 

 eight years as gardener in .America 

 was before I left Philadelphia. I 

 wrote to a friend in Boston, Mass., 

 making inquiry as regards the pros- 

 pects of getting a job there, and his 

 answer was this: "Don't come to Bos- 

 ton to work as gardener as no one 

 works at that business here except 

 negroes and the commonest kind of 

 white folks." You can imagine how 

 1 felt at the insult. The result was 1 

 never wrote or called on my friend 

 though 1 have been in Boston several 

 times since, but I found out that he 

 >vas not the only one in those days 

 who tried to besmirch a class of men 

 whose veracity and principle have al- 

 ways been the equal if not the super- 

 ior of men of any other profession. 



Meetings Next Week 



Monday, June 3. 



Bt^rnarilsvilU' Horticultural So- 

 ciety, Horticulturiil Hall, Bernards- 

 Tille, N. J. 



Elberon Horticultural Society, Fire 

 Hall. Elberou, N". .1. 



Houston Florists' Club. Chamber 

 of Commerce Kooms, Houston, Tex. 



Montreal Gardeners' and Florists' 

 Club, Montreal, Canada. 



New Bedford Horticultural So- 

 ciety, New Bedford, Mass. 



Florists' Club of Washington, 

 Wasliin^tou, 1>. (\ 



Tuesday, June 4. 



Florists' and Garilener.s' Clul> of 

 Holyoke and Northampton. ^lass. 



Lake Geneva Gardeners' and P^ore- 

 men's Association, Horticultural 

 Hall, Lake Geneva, Wis. 



Los Angeles County Horticultural 

 Society, Los Angeles, Cal. 



Paterson Floricultural Society, Y. 

 M. C. A. Bldg., Paterson, N. J. 



Florists' Club of Philadelphia, 

 Philadelphia. Pa. 



Pittsburgh Florists' and Garden- 

 ers' Club. Fort Pitt Hotel, Pitts- 

 burgh, Pa. 



Wednesday, June 5. 



Tu.xetio Iliirtiiultnr.il Society, 

 Tuxedo Park, .\. V. 



Thursday, June 6. 



Alliany Florists' Club, Albanv, 

 N. Y. 



Reading (Pa.) Florists' Associa- 

 tion. Reading, Pa. 



Southampton Horticultural So- 

 ciety, Odd Fellows Hall, Southamp- 

 ton, N. Y. 



Friday, June 7. 



North Sliore Horticultural Society, 

 Manchester, ^lass. 



North Shore Horticultural Society, 

 Lake Forest, HI. 



Pasadena Horticultural Society, 

 Pasadena. Cal. 



People's Park Cottage Gardeners' 

 Association, Paterson, N. ,T. 



Yonkers Horticultural Society, 

 Yonkers. N. Y. 



Saturday, June 8. 

 Pacific Coast Horticultural Societ.v. 



and why should it not be so? No 

 class of men are thrown in as close 

 touch with the better and more re- 

 fined element of people in this or any- 

 other country as are the gardeners, so 

 I would say in reply to the question 

 raised in HoKTicii.TrKK that the gard- 

 ener's place, either in business or in 

 the every-day walks of life, is among 

 the most refined and Christian people 

 in the community in which he resides, 

 and I thank God that I have lived to 

 see the day when our profession hp'i 

 so proven its value to society that any 

 of the heretofore refiections against 

 our calling have been entirely elimi- 

 nated from the category of our here- 

 tofore most severe critics. So our 

 standing today, brought about first 

 through our own industry and fair 

 dealings, and secondly through well 

 organized societies and our many well 

 edited trade journals is the envy of 

 most all other professions and I hope 

 same will continue and improve as 

 the years roll by. 



P.^TRICK FoY. 



Roanoke. Va. 



TORONTO HORTICULTURAL 

 SOCIETY 



Tbere was a long and animated dis- 

 cussion at the meeting of the Toronto 

 Horticultural Society, May 22, on the 

 question of a national flower. A reso- 

 lution was passed unanimously, pro- 

 testing against the creation of any 

 national emblem that would tend to 

 displace the maple leaf, but it was 

 suggested that a flower might be 

 chosen that would be suitable for 

 planting on the soldiers' graves in 

 Prance. It was pointed out that a rep- 

 resentative committee at the Univer- 

 sity of Toronto in March had passed a 

 similar resolution with regard to the 

 maple leaf. A special committee of the 

 Horticultural Society had discussed 

 whether a national flower could be 

 secured, or whether Provincial flowers 

 were practicable, and the idea of a 

 Hero's Flower" had appealed most to 

 them. Replying to a suggestion in favor 

 of the trillium. Dr. Shuttleworth de- 

 clared that the trillium would not 

 grow in France, and the columbine, 

 he said, also was too frail. 



AMERICAN DAHLIA SOCIETY 

 Last Call for Special Prizes 



As the executive committee of the 

 A. D. S. is now engaged in preparing 

 the special premium lists for both the 

 New York and Boston Dahlia exhibi- 

 tions to be held in September, it is re- 

 quested that friends of the society who 

 intend to offer prizes for either of 

 these shows notify the secretary at 

 once, in order that jiroper classes may 

 be arranged. 



To date the prize lists promise to 

 equal those of previous seasons, but 

 it is confidently hoped that a greater 

 variety of exhibits will be attracted 

 by a larger premium list. Offers of 

 prizes are therefore in ited. 



J. R. Lewis. 

 Secretary. 



73'i Riverside Drive, New York. 



AMERICAN GLADIOLUS SOCIETY 



Buffalo has been selected for the 

 annual convention and exhibition of 

 the American Gladiolus Society which 

 has broken away from the Society of 

 -American Florists which this year is 

 to meet in St. Louis, Mo. The dates 

 selected for the Buffalo convention are 

 August 10 to 20 inclusive. Sessions 

 and exhibition will be held here in 

 Elmwood :Music Hall. 



The Chatham, Ont., Horticultural 

 Society membership has increased 

 from 208 to 5ii0 during the past three 

 years and the government grant has 

 increased from $125 to $800 during the 

 same time. 



