466 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



GARLTON B. LEES. I am deeply disturbed that The White House 

 Conference on Natural Beauty neglected gardening as an art and 

 horticulture as an applied science. This area of activity has already 

 proved itself an effective tool for creating and maintaining human 

 environment; indeed, this is its purpose. 



The conference emphasized the need to educate our population 

 to understand and value beauty through day-by-day exposure. How, 

 then, could the discussions overlook garden programs which also 

 emphasize such related subjects as plant growth and identification, 

 soil care, bird and insect life, and many others? 



The solution of taking children out to beauty in schoolbuses, as 

 one panelist suggested, is artificial. I have seen window boxes in 

 Harlem, backyard gardens in Boston's South End, neighborhood 

 gardens in Philadelphia. 



These efforts are successful because they involve projects that are 

 attainable, and deeply satisfying to the participants. Education for 

 beauty begins at home. Indeed, one delegate to the conference 

 told of a children's project in which small plots were gardened be- 

 tween sidewalk and curb. "No one would dare pick or trample 

 one of the flowers," she reported, "and the pride of accomplishment 

 is immense." "Gardeners," said Barbara Ward, Lady Jackson, "are 

 extraordinarily good citizens." 



The garden concept also relates directly to suburbia. I submit 

 that the best insurance against preventing today's suburb from be- 

 coming tomorrow's slum, is through landscape (garden) interest. 

 By creating individual environments for the use, comfort and pleasure 

 of their families, men also provide better total environment. And 

 while gardeners support a tremendous industry involving an enor- 

 mous range of marketable products and services, their greatest value 

 is in the development of the kind of awareness and action which 

 creates better roadsides, parklands, green spaces; a better country. 



Not the least of our problems is that of taking care of this new 

 America. Even now, the level of help available for landscape 

 maintenance is degradingly low. Call it what you like park, gar- 

 den, recreation area, natural area the maintenance is primarily the 

 function of ornamental horticulture. 



Good training programs for intelligent and informed managerial 

 types are available in the many two-year schools attached to our land- 

 grant colleges, but horticulture, as a vocation, is attracting fewer 

 every day. In Europe a trained gardener is held in some esteem ; in 



