For February. l')23 



43 



RELATIONS BETWEEN GARDENERS ON 

 LARGE ESTATES AND NURSERYMEN 



{Extracts from a paper read before the Neiv England Nursery- 

 men's AssoeuHion at its convention held in Boston 

 by Robert Cameron.) 



'X'HE text of my subject is taken from the Gospel ac- 

 cording to St. Matthew, Chapter 7 and verses 1. -. 

 3 and 5. Please giVt special attention to the words 

 and I know if you do';'yon will lie better men when you 

 leave this room. 



1. Judge not that yc be not judged. 



2. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be 

 judged and with what measure you mete, it shall be 

 measured to you again. 



3. And w'liy beholdest thou the mote that is in thy 

 brother's eye ; but considerest not the beam that is in thine 

 own eye ? 



4. Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out 

 the mote out of thine eye, and behold a beam is in thine 

 own eye. 



5. Thou hypwcrite, first cast out the beam out of thine 

 own eye : and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the 

 mote out of thine brother's eye. 



Is it not true at this time that one fact stands out clear 

 and undisputed, that after centuries of teaching and 

 preaching, crime and immortality and downright dishonesty 

 and hypocrisy are more plentiful than at any other previ- 

 ous time in our history? This is not only true of our own 

 country, but of practically every country in the world. 

 There isn't a single day one takes up his newsjmper but 

 one reads of the most horrible crimes, scandalous thieving, 

 grafting and blackmailing. Is it not time that we asked 

 ourselves, "What is the cause of all this devilment ?" The 

 only way to get at the facts is to try and get back to the 

 cause. There is no lack of churches, schools, Sunday 

 schools and every imaginable kind of sect and creed to 

 make people good and help them to live upright lives. 

 Yet you will seeat once from my previous statement about 

 the condition of things in the world that the work done for 

 centuries by the institutions I have mentioned have failed 

 in their endeavor. Why have they failed? The answer 

 is simple and not far-fetched. We are all hypocrites. We 

 are not doing or have not done wdiat we promised to do. 



To most of us our religion has been one of one-day-a- 

 week. ^lost of you believe, undoubtedly, in keeping one 

 day holy and go to church on Sunday. The other six 

 days your Sunday religion is forgotten. What we need 

 is a religion that is good for seven days a week and 365 

 days a year. 



The Fourth Commandment that was handed to Aloses 

 is no good for the present times. It says, "the seventh 

 day you shall keep holy.'' It ought to be revised and to 

 read, — Seven days shalt thou keep holy and do nothmg' 

 on any day that you would not do on Sunday. 



I have read of 40,000 r>dd Fellows parading our streets 

 in Boston, 100,000 Masons, 75,000 Knights of Columbus 

 and many other organizations. Many of you here un- 

 doubtedly know the solemn obligations these men take. 

 Ask yourselves, do they keep their obligations? If they 

 did live up to what they promised, l\ly ! we would have 

 perfect conditions here. That number of upright men 

 would soon change the conditions of the world. 



The curse of the world at this time is selfishness and 

 greed, and we are just as bad as others. For a dollar we 

 will sell our reputation. The curse of our countn- is the 

 almighty dollar. The poor man gets more happiness out 

 of the world than the man who has nothing in his mind but 

 always '.-basing the dollar. Did you ever know of anyone 

 to take a dollar with him when he left this world? 



By this time you are wondering why I have taken up 

 the subject you assigned to me in this manner. I have 



tried to point out to you that we are all weaklings and 

 have our shortcomings and that there isn't nuich good 

 in any of us. 



The subject you assigned to me is — "Relation Between 

 (jardeners on Large Estates and Nurserymen." I am not 

 my brother's keeper, consequently I am not responsible for 

 his actions. Undoubted!}- you know much more about 

 gardeners than I do and what I will have to say will be 

 mostly my own experiences and observations. 



I n-iight say that I do not consider nurserymen better 

 than any other class of men. I have found some of them 

 honest and some of them dishonest. Neither do I consider 

 gardeners to be any better or any worse than the average 

 man. One thing I would like to say and that is, that there 

 is ample roon-| for imijrovement in both classes of men if 

 all the stories that are heard are true. I will also sav this, 

 that of all men, gardeners and nurserymen should be the 

 least susceptible to evil doings. Their work is amongst 

 Nature's most beautiful productions, consequently their 

 thoughts and deeds ought to be bigger and better than the 

 ordinarv n-ian in his occupation. 



One thing I would like to impress upon you and that is 

 this, that all gardeners are not dishonest, that there are 

 n-iany gcjod and upright n-ien in the profession. There are 

 some black sheep in every flock. 



On a large estate the gardener has in many cases from 

 one to three millions of dollars' worth of property under 

 his care. There are large expenditures and he "has the 

 handling of a lot of money during the vear. 



It would interest some of you, I know, to hear of some 

 of the temptations that are thrown in the way of a man 

 in charge of a large estate. I hope you will forgive me 

 for giving mv own personal experience in dealing with 

 gardeners, because I have never been in business and never 

 sold a plant iii mv life. 



(Mr. Cameron here related some of his experiences 

 with tra<lesmen, but he never fell to temptation.) 



One nuist always remember that the man who gives 

 con-imissions is just as guilty as the one who takes it. If 

 a man gives it because others give it, he is no man at all 

 that will not stand up and denounce this mean habit. In 

 the long run he would be better off if he denounced it. 



There is only one way to get rid of this practice and 

 >-ou men know the way just as well as I do, but I think 

 you haven't the courage or the backbone to do it. The 

 only way to aliolish this practice is for the trade to dis- 

 continue it. If you will not pay commissions or indulge 

 in even worse otTences, than the gardeners can not be 

 participants in this evil doing. 



To me thfcre is no occupation like gardening and anv- 

 thing you can do to make it cleaner and better I shall he 

 glad to give you anv assistance that is in my power. But 

 first of all make up your minds that you are willing to give 

 up this custom of giving commissions and there will be 

 a quick death to this detestable habit. 



At the conclusion of the reading of the paper an inter- 

 esting discussion followed. The Boston Herald in report- 

 ing the convention said, "Robert Cameron of Ipswich, re- 

 tired president of the National Association of Gardeners, 

 spoke on 'Relations Between Gardeners on Large Estates 

 and Nurserymen." scoring the practice of offering gratui- 

 ties to secure sales. His address was so effective" that the 

 gathering immediately proposed an amendment to the 

 by-laws of the association, providing that 'any member of 

 the association found guilty of giving a g-ratuitv to a 

 gardener, or other person, shall be prosecuted by the 

 association and be expelled from membership.' '' 



It was proposed to invite the National Nurserymen's 

 Association and the .\merican Seedsn-ien's Association to 

 follow the action taken by the New England Nurservmen's 

 .Association. 



