166 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



'must be a gardener. It matters uot whether he is to teach the art 

 or practise it ; the garden is the school and Nature the head 

 teacher. However much the science may be disseminated after- 

 wards, it is born in the garden and cradled by the gardener. 



A man may be proficient in systematic botany ; his herbarium 

 may be complete ; and yet he may not truly know orchids or 

 «onions. There is a great difference between Tcnowivg a thing and 

 Jcnowing about it. To know is to be educated ; to do is to be 

 scientific. A man is not necessarily a musician because he can 

 render perfectly one of Beethoven's symphonies. He rrnxy be only 

 a performer or imitator. A musician is he who has assisted in 

 perfecting the modulation of sound. So too, a man is not a 

 gardener who simply talks al)out the garden and describes the 

 plants. He may kuow their luimes and origin without knowing 

 them. He is not a scientific gardener who can repeat every word 

 of some scientific treatise on gardening. The scientific gardener 

 is the one who, through his owu observation and industry, has 

 gained some facts in regard to plants and their culture, or devel- 

 oped some forms, uot previously known. He is a man who can 

 make a garden and have in it all that is desired in the greatest 

 perfection. Such gardeners teach our professors. 



If a man should call upon one of the professors of botany or 

 horticulture at Harvard, the fountain head of education, and make 

 some inquiry regarding trees, he would soon be filled to overflow- 

 ing with the contents of their text-books and he would very likely 

 exclaim, " I do not want the tree in the abstract; I want it on the 

 lawn, in the orchard, or by the roadside." The professor would 

 then say, "if trees are what you want, go to the Arnold Arbore- 

 tum and see Dawson. He knows them all ; they sing for him and 

 talk to him in their way. He knows their language because he is 

 in sympathy with them. Every fibre of a tree is a musical chord 

 that is in harmony with his nature. A seemingly lifeless branch 

 will bud for him when it would not live for another." If a man 

 wanted roses, he would be directed to Moore of Concord, or 

 Wood of Natick. If chrysanthemums, he would be directed to 

 Dr. Walcott. If orchids were desired, he would be told to visit 

 Eobinson or Allan. If he wanted lessons in landscape pictures 

 combined with everything else relating to horticulture, he would 

 be advised to take the first train for Wellesley and have a chat 

 with Harris, who knows vegetables, fruits, flowers, as well as trees 



