312 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



selves valuable and created the place. I have in mind 

 at least two instances where gardeners were employed 

 at sixty dollars per month and are now getting as high 

 as one hundred and fifty dollars per month : this all 

 happening inside of five years." 



The question of the gardener's worth in money is 

 surely to be considered as an important one to both 

 sides. A discussion of this matter has lately taken 

 place with a rather unusual freedom of speech in the 

 columns of one of our best horticultural weeklies ; 

 and it may be of interest to quote here from some of 

 these arguments. One writer, taking the words of a 

 former Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, 

 begins thus : "In every profession which uses a man's 

 highest powers and lays rigid demand on his idealism 

 and courage it is always sage to assume that up to a 

 certain point these men can be overworked and under- 

 paid, because they are much more concerned with 

 doing their work well than with being well paid for it. 

 But when this imposition begins to reduce them and 

 their families to poverty, they do not, as do workmen 

 lower in the scale, go on strikes. They quietly resign 

 and seek some other occupation. It is commonplace 

 among professions in which idealism plays a part : this 

 idealism is deliberately exploited to the disadvantage 

 of those of whom it is exacted." This, I think, meets 

 the gardener's case exactly, and, so long as conditions 

 are as thev' are, gardening must necessarily be a labor 

 of love." 



Now hear another, this time on the practical side : 

 "The burning question seems to be how to get away 

 from the fifty-dollars-a-month salary limit. There is 

 no getting away from it so long as people of wealth are 

 willing to hire a laborer who calls himself a gardener, 

 at that price. The remedy, to my mind, is to start a 

 campaign of education among the people who are 

 wealthy enough to hire a real gardener and show them 

 by facts, figures, and statistics that they are losing 

 nioney by not doing so. A good gardener is worth 

 anywhere from one hundred dollars U]) — just by the 

 same process of reasoning that <nie wnuld employ in 

 engaging a lawyer or doctor. 



"The larger the estate, the more the responsibility. 

 The larger the responsibility, the higher the salary. If 

 a good man is squeezed down to taking less than he is 

 worth, the greater the temptation to make something 

 on the side. If a poor man, that is, an ignorant man 

 willing to take laborer's wages, is hired, then the 

 estate will suffer not only in that, but in many other ways. 

 So that it is the employing class that the campaign of 

 education should be aimed at. It will do no good to 

 scold the seedsman or other allied interests; nor to 

 split the ceiling in gardeners' meetings about the 

 villainy of those fifty-dollar fellows calling them- 

 selves gardeners. One hundred dollars should be the 

 the minimum. More should not be considered any- 

 thing out of the way if the training, experience and 

 native ability be present. But the employers have to 

 be educated up to that." Proportions should be main- 

 tained, salaries of the learned professions kept in 

 mind. I personally believe that $100 a month is the 

 least that should be offered by those whose fortune 

 fits them to employ an excellent professional gardener. 

 In all these words, the subject of the gardener, his 

 salar^■ and his position, has been only begun. It is a mat- 

 ter which, with the ever-increasing interest in gardens, 

 must and will be more and more discussed ; and in 

 which the gardener's side must be better looked after 

 by his employer than at present seems to be the case. 

 "And if the reply of an alarmed employer might be 

 that all this means higher wages, our reply is, first. 



that after all it is very little; and secondly, that the 

 garden must be looked at in a new perspective, not as 

 a tiresome and costly appttrtenance every penny spent 

 upon which is begrudged, while thousands are to be lav- 

 ished on pictures, old china and motor cars, but as a great 

 influence on life." 



There is reasoning here as cogent as it is vigorous ; 

 I fully agree with this writer, and the more so when 

 I think of the disproportionate use of money by those 

 who would keep down the wages of the men engaged 

 for their gardens ; for those labors which go to pro- 

 duce what is becoming daily more and more precious 

 to men and women in this age. 



Let us who think seriously of these things not only 

 learn to value the services of our own gardeners more 

 fully, but let us spread our convictions upon the sub- 

 ject, and soon mtist come a better tmderstanding and 

 agreement between emi)lover and emiiloved. 



QUESTION OF PROPER PROPOGATION. 



Editor, CiARDi-;.\p:Rs' Chroxuli:. 



Mr. Barnard is, as I can see, writing from the view- 

 point of the plant factor}- and not from the iirivate 

 gardener's stand]" jint. Therefiire, why did he take 

 issue with the private gardener? 



(hardeners still propagate in the old way to a great 

 extent because they have found the results are 

 superior. 



The gardener grows his plants on to maturity and 

 the plantsman grows to sell in a young state. I am 

 sure that I am not the only gardener that has been 

 disappointed with stock purchased from the plant 

 factory where every inch of wood is progagated to 

 make a dollar. If it were surplus stock from a good 

 many private places it would go in the dtimp. Mr. 

 Barnard makes the statement that for twenty years 

 before going west he did not know of any one making 

 a cutting of a plant with a heel, mentioning Gera- 

 niums, Fuchsias, Heliotrope, \'erbenas, etc., which 

 shows he was not amongst the private gardeners to 

 any extent, for they are still doing it today and no 

 better stock is to be seen any place than on the ])ri- 

 vate estates and I am sure by inquiry you will find 

 that such stock cannot be duplicated by any of the 

 establishments where plants are grown by the mil- 

 lion. ]\Iy contention was that Mr. Barnard's article 

 was misleading in that it would give the reader the 

 impression that his method of propagating gave bet- 

 ter results and the gardener not following it was a 

 fool and lacking in jn^ogress. 



Xcv>-]3ort, R. I. WiLLi.\M Gr.w. 



GARDEN ANTS DO LITTLE HARM. 



According tu tlic Dcpnrtiiiciit of Agiicultiiif ;\iits du littli' in- 

 jury to lawns anil gardens and tlie injury tliat is attributed to 

 them is usually caused by something else. In large numbers the 

 small conical nests which- they build on lawns are somewhat 

 unsightly, and on this account it may be desirable in some cases 

 to destroy them. 



Except for the unsightly appearance of tlieir nests, however, 

 the lawn ants do no appreciable harm. They are frequently 

 noted on roses and on other ornamental and garden plants, and 

 it is naturally supposed tliat tliey are doing harm to these. As 

 a matter of fact, it is not the plants that attract the ants, but 

 plant lice. These tiny creatures excrete a sweet liquid of which 

 ants are very fond, and which they collect without injuring the 

 plant lice. On the wdiole. they do no harm of any kind except 

 in so far as they lessen tlie attractive appearance of the lawn. 

 On the other hand, it is quite possible that by bringing up from 

 the lower depths >and and earth they may distinctly increase 

 fertility by fmniing a to]i dressing or soil mulch, and at the 

 same time permit better aeration of the earth. 



