266 



GARDENERS' CHROMCLE 



Take the magnificent estate Mr. Cameron is presiding over, 

 owned by Mr. Crane. It is set there on a high cHff at the mouth 

 of the Ipswich River, with a commanding view of the entire 

 Gloucester Bay that reaches from the deep arm of Cape Ann even 

 to the Isle of Shoals. As a boy, that estate and its possibilities 

 were first regarded by John B. Brown. Today Mr. Cameron has 

 under his charge an estate that is so highly valued, not because 

 of the buildings that are set upon it. palatial as they are in char- 

 acter or structure, but because of the line art which it has dis- 

 closed to men who can appreciate it and all the possibilities of 

 that magniticent thing. 



The city of Boston is indeed the city that eminently merits the 

 great honor you confer upon it by meeting here again. Boston 

 and its people have been quick to appreciate the work of beautify- 

 ing its parks. We have been generous, even to the point of being 

 charged with extravagance, in our appropriations for that purpose. 



Flowers — they express so much ! It is a tribute to Nature and 

 to Nature's God. It is a cultural expression, capable of apprecia- 

 tion by all men. because the basis of real culture is not necessarily 

 letters and learning. There may be a relmement, a cultural refine- 

 ment even in men and women w'ho know very little of what is 

 contained in the books. 



Boston has felt your influence. Boston has sought your aid 

 and skill. It is the hope of our Mayor that we may continue to 

 promote what may be spoken of as these vast enterprises of horti- 

 cultural endeavors, because to beautify our city means to have a 

 refining influence upon those who come to dwell in our midst. 

 Therefore, my coming here today on behalf of the Mayor is to 

 represent his sincere purpose, as you have seen him accomplish it, 

 in these great endeavors, the public playgrounds and those vast 

 expanses for recreation that are to be found here. So it is that I, 

 too, accept the delegated invitation sincerely to come here and 

 speak in his behalf before you good men and women. 



I hope the fruits of this convention will be far reaching, -will 

 be permanent, and that as a result of it all you will leave this 

 city strengthened in numbers, strengthened in influence and with 

 an increased initiative for continued progress. 



Mr. Craig announced that William Gray, superintendent of the 

 estate of Princess Christopher of Greece at Newport, was to 

 reply to the address of welcome from the Mayor or the Mayor's 

 delegate. As he was unable to be here, he asked D. L. Mackintosh, 

 of New Jersey, to do that duty. 



Mk. 



'.NCKiNTOSH Responds 



Mr. Mackintosh responded as follows : It would be a hard thing 

 for me to reply in an intelligent manner to all that Mr. Sullivan 

 said at a few moments' notice. 



You know you are a much older city or a much older part of 

 the country than what we are in New York and New Jersey. 

 Last year when we had the convention in New York our now 

 honorable president took the liberty and had the audacity to twit 

 us that we were all wrong in colors. Well, that wasn't very 

 easily swallow-ed. He told us that we had nothing but glaring 

 red and blazing yellow and that if we would come to Boston we 

 would see beautiful pinks and mauve and lavender. I suppose 

 your exhibition is put up as a lesson for those of New York to 

 take away with us. 



I don't wonder very inuch at that. As I stand here looking into 

 your different faces f can readily understand that the most of you 

 instead of being brought up on Borden's Condensed Milk were 

 brought up on porridge and sorduck, so that you grew up to the 

 age of manhood and discretion, if not you, your fathers, in the 

 land of the Scotch bluebell, the most lovely shade of blue that 

 any painter has Ijeen able to j)roduce, and in your eyes, your inind's 

 eye, you carry that shade of blue. .Vnd then the great majority 

 of you had the pleasure of seeing a thousand acres of the most 

 beautiful pink that ever could be put together in the form of 

 heather spread over the mountains of Scotland and the wild, rug- 

 ged hills of Ireland. No painter has been able to make any pink 

 shade to surpass the heather. 



When you have so many of these men with tlicse fascinating 

 colors in their mind's eye, do you wonder that these colors pre- 

 dominate—pink, blue, mauve? We in New York are of a dif- 

 ferent type altogether. I heard President Wilson say that New 

 York was the largest Italian city in the world. It is al.so the 

 largest Spanish city in the world. Now you know that an Italian 

 always has in his mind's eye that blazing rc-d that comes vomiting 

 out of the top of Mount Vesuvius. He never can forget that red. 

 and the Spaniards can never forget the yellf)w of their flag. So 

 why wonder at us going ahead for yellow and red? Different 

 nationalities have their different traits and we all cater to our 

 own traits. What is the difference? We are pleased and you are 

 pleased. 



Now before sitting down T would like to thank, on behalf of 

 the association. Mr. Sullivan for the splendid talk he gave us, 

 and I would like to extend our thanks to the Mayor for the ex- 

 cellent man he sent as a substitute. 



Afr. Craig announced the next speaker as a gcntkni.m wli.p 



needs no introduction. I am now going to introduce to you Mr. 

 Cameron, who will now give his presidential address. 

 President Robert Cameron 

 Robert Cameron, of Ipswich, Mass., then read his adilress 

 (which appears on page 264). 



Air. Craig introduced Arthur W. Gilbert. Commissioner of 

 Agriculture of Massachusetts. 



Albert \V. Gilbert, Commissioner of Agriculture, Mass. 



Mr. Gilbert replied: I feel a little personal interest in this con- 

 vention, in you, and in the work that you are doing. I have 

 never had the pleasure and the honor of being a professional 

 gardener, but for several years I did have the interest and the 

 experience, and I might say the enthusiasm of being a plant 

 breeder. 



Now in the few minutes that I have allotted to me I want to 

 present to you another subject which is very close to all of us. 

 It applies not only to those of you who are living in the Common- 

 wealth of Massachusetts and nearby states, but possibly to 

 others, and I believe it has a direct bearing upon the work which 

 you are doing. You are aware, perhaps, that the agriculture of 

 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the last thirty years has 

 been going downhill. This applies also to other Eastern states. 

 We have forty-two per cent less cultivated land in this state 

 than we had thirty years ago. The greater center of food pro- 

 duction has moved westward and has left us in the East in a 

 very serious predicament. 



Do you realize, my friends, that we are sending out of New 

 England every year five hundred million dollars for food? 



Now this is a very serious situation. We are located where 

 there are very few natural raw products. We are a great industrial 

 centre, as our chairman said. 



The result of this is that the Eastern states are finding them- 

 selves in the most critical industrial situation that they have ever 

 faced, and therefore, my friends, I am taking the liberty for just 

 a moment to tell you that we are trying in every possible way and 

 at every possible time to preach the raising of greater quantities 

 of food in the East. If we are so far away from the centres of 

 raw materials, we must bring ourselves nearer the centre of food 

 production by raising greater quantities of food here. 



Now I state this for two reasons to you. In the first place, 

 you as professional gardeners, raisers of plants, primarily orna- 

 mental plants I assume, can be of great assistance to us, because 

 at a time like this, we need all of the skill which you 

 men and women possess. We need in the East the best agriculture 

 that can be found anywhere. We haven't the advantage of the 

 fertile prairies of the West. We have to raise our food on the 

 rocky hillsides of the East, and if there is afiy place in the world 

 where there is greater need and opportunity for skill it is here, 

 and you are the men and women who represent, to my mind, the 

 acme of this skill, and we want to get from you all of the ex- 

 perience and all of the interest which you possess in helping us 

 to carry out this program. 



I bring this to you for another reason. As your President has 

 said, your business in general depends upon industrial prosperity. 

 Perhaps you may feel the pinch of the lack of that prosperity as 

 quickly as anybody else, and therefore it behooves us to help in 

 every possible way to maintain the industrial and commercial 

 prosperity — and I might say, supremacy of the Eastern part of 

 the United States. 



I am very glad to see, as your President has also pointed out. 

 that the Massachusetts Agricultural College is goin,g to offer a 

 course in gardening. T have the pleasure of being a trustee of 

 that college, a graduate al.so of that college, and I assure you 

 that I shall do everything possible to help to stimulate this course, 

 to bring it to a high state of elhciency, and to help you in helping 

 to maintain and carry it out. I am glad that it is being done 

 not by the college alone, but by the college in conjunction with 

 this organization. This is one of the first direct tie-ups that we 

 have between an agricultural college and an organization, and I 

 congratulate you, my friends, that you have hern one of the first 

 to bring about a close contact witli a college. 



If the State Department of Agriculture can be of any assistance 

 to you at any lime you know that we will be glad to help. 



In introducing the next speaker, Mr. Craig said : It hardly 

 seems necessary to introduce the next speaker to you. You have 

 been told about the wonderful exhibition of wild flowers we had 

 here last May which attracted the attendance of approximately 

 S5.000 people. \o\i may have seen, or at least you have read of 

 the wonderful displays of orchids we had here monlh by month 

 the year l>ef()re last and the great orchid displays made here by 

 the next speaker. 



Mr. Burrage was awarded the George R. White medal of honor 

 recently for the most cminenl services conferred to horticulture 

 bv any living .American during the past year He is not only 

 President of the Massachusetts Horticultural .Society, but of the 

 American Orchid Society. We will be his guests and he priv- 

 ilege<l to view his fine collection of <irchids next Thursday 

 morning. 



