562 



HOETICULTUEE 



April 11, 1914 



A Duplex Flower of Sweet Pea Yabrawa 



A Burpee Sensation 



The accompanying pictures of one of Burpee's latest 

 sweet pea novelties furnish a striking indication of 

 the present tendency in sweet pea development. The 

 illustrations are considerably reduced from the original 

 photographs, which are life size. According to same 

 the duplex flower shown separately is 3-J inches across 

 and the other picture is reduced to just about one-half 

 size. 



The progi'ess which has been made in sweet peas since 

 Burpee and several others began to specialize some 

 twenty years ago is Just one uninterrupted floricultural 

 triumph and the end is not yet in sight. 



Spray of Winter Fowering Sweet Pea Yarrawa 



The Gardeners' Problem 



The executive committee of the National Association of Gardeners held their quarterly meeting 

 here in Philadelphia on the 7th inst. The secretary usually sends you an official report, so what I 

 have to say is only by way of comment and not of narrative. 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 money by not doing 

 so. A good gardener is worth anywhere from one hundred dollars up — just by the same process of 

 reasoning as one would employ in hiring a lawyer or a 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 laborers' 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 edu- 

 cation must be aimed at. It will do no good to scold the seedsmen or other allied interests; nor to 

 split the ceiling in gardeners' meetings about the villany of those tifty-dollar fellows calling them- 

 selves gardeners. One hundred should be the minimum, and two hundred, three hundred, five hun- 

 dred, or even more should not be considered anything out of the way if the training, experience and 

 native ability be present. But the employers have to be educated up to that. There is where the 

 legitimate work of the K A. G. really comes in. George C. Watson. 



