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THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



lution along those lines and foiward it to tlie several huiticul- 

 tiual societies on the other side. 



The motion was seconded with appUuise and diilj' carried. 



PRESIDENT WAITE: I will appoint as that committee W. N^ 

 Craig, Brooklino, Mass.; Duncan i'inlayson. Brookline. Mass., and 

 Jlartin C. Ebel. Madison, N. J. 



President Theodore Wirth, of the Society of American Flor- 

 ists, will fa\ or ns with a few words. 



Address by Theodore Wirth, Minneapolis, Minn., President of the 

 S. A. F. & 0. H. 



Jlr. President, Fellow Members of the National Association of 

 Gardeners: I want to tell you that I am exceedingly glad indeed 

 to be with you. You are, so to speak, an Eastern association, 

 because yon have very few members, if I am not mistaken, out 

 in the West; but in that you are somewhat in the very same 

 position with the American Society of Florists and Ornamental 

 Horticulturists, although the latter society is of thirty years 

 standing. So I want to tell yon that that you need not feel dis- 

 couraged that you have not very many mcml)ers yet in tlie Far 

 West. You all understand that the Far West is away behind, in 

 a good many respects, the Far East. It is a newer country. In 

 tlie \\ est you have to travel hundreds of miles before you find 

 a private estate which would anywhere near compare with such 

 estates as we find right around licre near Boston, or elsewhere in 

 the New England States. But that simi)ly means that the time 

 is coming when there will be a great opportunity for we gar- 

 deners to help to build up that great Western country; and 

 I want to tell you, uiy friends from the East, that if you get 

 too crowded out liere, do not hesitate to come out West. You 

 may not find places all laid out for you, but you will have the 

 pleasure and the privilege of laying them out. I have not lis- 

 tened to any great part of the paper written by Mr. Siuith, but 

 from some discussion that I have noticed in the trade papers and 

 a few remarks that I have listened to, I believe I know what the 

 gentleman had to say to you ; and I want to say that I believe 

 I know — and I talk from experience — that if the gardener of 

 today is underpaid, and if his labors, his knowledge and his 

 experience are not appreciated, it is to a certain extent at least 

 the fault of the gardener himself. 



I want to tell you that the Far West ofters a fine oppor- 

 tunity for the gardener to go out there and build up places and 

 make a demand for positions for good gardeners to fill. 



Now the National Association of Gardeners. I think, should 

 make it a point to help gardeners out all it can; but it should 

 not try to help a man that cannot help himself. A man must 

 be able to help himself. If he can help himself, the Lord will 

 help him, there is no question about it. (Applause.) 



Some twent}' years ago I was what they called a gi-eenhorn 

 in this country. I am glad that I was a greenhorn, and that I 

 was brought up on the other side, and had to serve a good hard 

 apprenticesiiip. And what is more, F had to work for three years 

 for nothing, and my father had to pay for my board. I have 

 always been glad that I had that hard work to do when I first 

 decided to become a gardener. 



I came over to this country, and I was directed to go out to 

 Long Island some place — I will not mention the place. I have 

 told this little story once before in Boston. It was one of the 

 finest places in Long Island at that time. I went out to the 

 gentleman on Saturday afternoon, and we walked around the 

 ]dace all afternoon. I was deliglitcd with the work that had to 

 lie done there. When we got all throngli the gentleman was 

 ready to go back to town, and he asked his head man or manager 

 there to show me my room. He took me up above the horse 

 barn to a little bit of a room with a window in it not any 

 bigger than that ventilator over there — no light, no air, no any- 

 thing. I said, "What is this?" The manager said. "That is your 

 room." I said, "You go and tell the gentleman that unless I get 

 a decent room to live in I will go right back to town and stay 

 there;" and the gentleman said to iiis manager, "Give him the 

 best room you have in tlie house and I will pay for it." And 

 that gentleman thought much more of me because of the stand 

 that I took than if I had submitted to that kind of treatment. 

 All you have to do, my brothers, in your business is to stand 

 by your guns. If you demand proper recognition, you will get 

 it. As long as you submit to everything you will not get it. 

 There is nobody to blame but yourself. 



And now I want to say a few words in regard to the S. A. F. 

 You know that the S. A. F. is a commercial organization. It is 

 the strongest organization that we have today in the States; 

 and I am personally of opinion that we ought to branch out to 

 a great extent in the work that we are doing; but I do not 

 believe that the majority of the members see it that way. When 

 you have a horticultural society that yon can make use of. which 

 has existed for thirty years, has a national charter, and is recog- 

 nized all over the country as a progressive association. I would 

 like to see that association made use of by every brancli of 

 horticulture. 



I believe tliat afiiliation ought to be brought about, not neces- 

 sarily by a large membership, but by giving every organization 

 that is progressive and has a good active membership representa- 

 tion on the Board of Directors of the S. A. F. Each of the 

 affiliating organizations can through its membership on the Board 

 of Directors express its own views and obtain recognition for 

 whatever oljjects it has in view. So I hope that your Associa- 

 tion will take this matter under careful consideration and send 

 a director to our S. A. F. Board of Directors in due time. 



I do not want to make use of my present position as President 

 of the S. A. F. & 0. H. to try and unduly influence you here; 

 yet I ask this of you, that you learn what we are trying to 

 accomplish and whether you can see j'our way clear to help us 

 to accomplish what I have in mind, namely, a national associa- 

 tion ultimately which will represent and minister to the needs 

 of every branch of horticulture. If you can help us to bring 

 that about, then I will feel that I have been amply recom- 

 pensed for my appearance and elTorts before you here today. 



Now, gentlemen, I do not want to take up any more of your 

 time. I thank you very kindly for listeninn- to mc so long. 

 (Applause.) 



Response by Secretary Martin C. Ebel, Madison, N. J. 



Mr. President and Fellow Members: I want to say a few 

 words in answer to President Wirth, of the S. A. F., wlio is 

 also a director of the National Association of Gardeners. 



I would suggest to him that when he goes back to his liome 

 in the West he will not forget that in the National Association 

 of Gardeners we have competent men who are willing to go West 

 if the opportunity ofi"ers. I believe that the estate owners are 

 willing to pay fair prices, but they h.ave not yet been fully edu- 

 cated up to it, and many do not know the diff'erence between a 

 garden laborer and a gardener. In the National Association of 

 Gardeners' Service Bureau we have had three instances recently 

 where estate owners have called for men for $75 or $80 a month. 

 In each case we refused to recommend a man unless they would 

 pay $100. And they replied, "Find tlie man such as you describe 

 and I will be glad to pay such a man $100, but I have never come 

 across such a man." The men that were recommended by the 

 Service Bureau, I am glad to say. are all giving satisfaction, and 

 one has already had his pay increased. The great difficulty is 

 that wdien a position is in the market and gardeners find out 

 about it. their applications pile in and they compete with each 

 other, oft'ering their services for a low price in order to get the 

 position. There was an instance in New York this year where 

 a man had lieen engaged on the recommendation of a landscape 

 architect to take charge of a large estate. The owner offered the 

 applicant $125. He would not accept less than $1.50, and was 

 engaged at that figure. The vacancy about that time became 

 noised about, and within three days there were 6.5 applications, 

 none of them asking higher than $7.5. One man wrote that if 

 he could get "the Job" he would be willing to take it at $40 per 

 month, and show the owner how he could make some money out 

 of his place. Then the owner went to the landscape man and 

 asked. "Don't you tliink I am paying too much; don't you think 

 I can get gardeners at a lower price than you thought I could?" 

 And so the trouble often rests with the gardeners themselves. 

 They compete with one another. 



I want to say to Mr. Wirth that we are going to San Fran- 

 cisco next year, and that we are spreading out. I move that we 

 tender a rising vote of thanks to Mr. Wirth for his address to us 

 this afternoon. 



\\ithout waiting to have the fpiestion ]iut to vote, the entire 

 meeting rose and greeted Mr. AA'irth with applause. 



MR. WIRTH: I want to thank you gentlemen, and I want to 

 say just one more word, and that is this, that I am very glad to 

 hear that you are coming to San Francisco. The S. A. F. voted 

 to go there. The election was carried by one vote. I believe 

 we could have gotten more votes if we had wanted to. If you 

 people want to get acquainted with the florists it is absolutely 

 necessary for you to go there. The S. A. F. calls itself a national 

 association. If we are a national association we will have to try 

 and cover the entire country. In the same way, you call yoi:r- 

 selves a national association, and if .vou are going to call your- 

 selves national, you will have to go all over the country. I am 

 very glad that you as a very young organization have the cour- 

 age to do what an association of thirty years standing seems to 

 have been a little timid about doing. (Applause.) 



PRESIDENT WAITE: Professor E. A. White, of Cornell, has 

 just entered the room. He will have a few words to say to the 

 boys present here. 



Remarks by Professor E. A. White. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen: I did not expect to say anything, 

 having just come in here a moment ago. T wanted to know 

 what was goino- on. I asked of Mr. Ebel what I should say, and 

 lie said. "Just give us a few words of good cheer." I presume 

 that you know that I am located at Cornell, and that we are 

 trying to do .something in the way of promoting horticultural 



