1894.] ESSAYS. 25 



seedsmen are doing the best they can, and I am sure our California 

 growers will correct these mistakes. The public may lose coutidence 

 in a seedsman here and there, but my confidence in their honesty and 

 purpose to faithfully serve the public has gone up several pegs since 

 I came to get a little behind the scenes. One year more will do much 

 to make all the seed grown in this country true to name. 



Were there time I would like to say something about specialists in 

 floriculture. I would plead for their multiplication. It is indeed 

 almost an infinite word to talk of specialists, yet every flower waits 

 for them, and our best progress to-day is but tardy compared to what 

 it will be when the real era of enthusiasm dawns, and instead of 

 dabbliug in a little of everything we each consecrate ourselves with 

 the aim of an artist and the devotion of a scientist to some par- 

 ticular flower. An amateur is one now who amuses himself with 

 flowers. We need a generation of specialists who will concentrate 

 their floral love to a mission to make the most, each of his own chosen 

 flower. I would love to be a specialist iu Sweet Peas, but, I confess, 

 I can only play at them. But I have caught a glimpse now and then 

 of what a specialist must be. If he attempts to fill out the full 

 measure of the word, and to get his one flower thoroughly in hand, he 

 will find it is enough for one man to do to just compass the world- 

 wide correspondence that is needed to get at the sources of informa- 

 tion respecting his one flower. And, again, it is enough for a man 

 of fertile brain to write what ought to be written to give the public 

 an intelligent appreciation of the beauties and points of merit and of 

 progess of a rapidly developing flower. And then in the direct work 

 of growing the flower at its best, of improving it, of subduing its 

 special diseases, and finding the sure way to destroy the pests that 

 prey upon it, and that more advanced work of the development of 

 new varieties, in which season after season the delicate manipulation 

 of bud and blossom, and the constant watching for results and of 

 variations in nature, and the tireless process of selection, goes on, 

 requiring a keen eye for everything, and an unflagging zeal, requiring 

 the most minute records, and the most classified preservation of 

 everything experimented upon, the range of vision broadening every 

 year, and every year the eye growing keener for observation ; this is 

 but a suggestion of the specialist's work, and it is ivork, but it is here 

 that pleasure has its finest zest, and that the most exciting surprises 

 are found, and the keenest senses of the soul are tingled even to the 

 intoxication of delight. The gaping world may call such a man an 

 enthusiast, giving to the word more or less of the meaning that he is 



