HO PACIFIC STATES FLORAL CONGRESS. 



WHAT SEMITROPICAL GARDENING HAS DONE FOR 

 CIVILIZATION. 



BY E. J. WICKSON. 



In the semitropical garden of the present day the human race renews 

 its youth. The earliest records of civilization were made amid the 

 splendid vegetation which sprang naturally from the rich soil in the 

 valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile, supplemented probably by the 

 acquisitions of fruit and flowers made by barbaric tribes returning 

 from their excursions into distant parts of Asia. Before the pyramids 

 uprose, before the most ancient Chaldean records were inscribed, man- 

 kind had learned to love plants and flowers, and history dawns upon 

 people skilled in horticultural arts and moved by horticultural senti- 

 ment. All the wonderful, erudite researches of the last half century, 

 which have brought to light so much about ancient peoples, have dis- 

 closed nothing more capable of demonstration, nor more lofty in sig- 

 nificance, than the simple declaration of Genesis, "And the Lord planted 

 a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had 

 formed." But however men may argue, pro and con, about the reason- 

 ableness of the conception that the Creator put man at the beginning 

 into a garden of the grandest plant collections and culture, with mind 

 to understand and heart to love them, there can be no question that 

 God put the garden into the heart of man at the very beginning, and 

 there it has remained ever since as an inspiration, an incitement, and 

 a sublime comfort. Horticulture has existed as a moving force in 

 poetry, in philosophy, in ethics, and in religion. It has taught duty to 

 God and duty to man to all people in all ages. 



But why should it be claimed that the semitropical garden is entitled 

 to special consideration in this connection? Is it not true of any 

 honest gardening, or at least of any true following of what i? called 

 the natural in gardening art? Undoubtedly it is true of any embodi- 

 ment, however rude, of plant love and care. It is one proof, perhaps, 

 that the gift is from a beneficent Creator, that its truth does not admit 

 of degree, that a single plant in the window of a tenement may fill a 

 heart to its full capacity for elevation, joy, and generosity. And what 

 more can the grandest gardening do? But while all true gardening 

 merits praise, and has always received the homage of mankind, the 

 semitropical garden is entitled to a certain eminence from several points 

 of view. 



Traditionally, the semitropical is the pioneer garden. Of half a 

 dozen sites of Edens for which theologians have contended, all were in 



