64 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



equipment, plants, seeds, trees, and so forth; the machinery of 

 gardening. 



Is the skilled horticulturist preparing to properly direct his 

 energies so as not to let the present opportunity pass by? Are the 

 teachers going out to meet the new comer at least half way? Are 

 our organized institutions — societies, garden clubs, etc. — pre- 

 pared to lend the helping hand? ^Yill our writers realize more 

 than ever that their work is effective in proportion as they interest 

 those hungry for knowledge of exact facts? Will they learn to 

 write more of the things the masses need to know and less of aca- 

 demic discussion among themselves? Will the dealer go to his 

 market and not be content merely to sit down and wait for the 

 market to come to him? It should be as easy to buy the things for 

 the garden as it is to buy the things for the house. All the agencies 

 are needed to work together with one common viewpoint if a 

 renaissance in gardening is to be the outcome of the active condi- 

 tions. 



What is a renaissance? I cannot do better than quote a para- 

 graph from Mary Delan's " Short History of France." 



" It is difficult to know what causes a renaissance — one of 

 those rare revivals and renewals of beauty and mind, invention 

 and creation, which at long intervals transfigure the world and 

 inaugurate a new order. I think they are always preceded by 

 much coming and going on the surface of the earth, vast inter- 

 changes of ideas and experience among the nations of men." 



Surely the prescribed conditions exist. 



That we are on the threshold of a renaissance in horticultural 

 affairs is forcibly impressed upon me from many angles. To some 

 of these I have already called your attention. Who would have 

 expected two years ago that there could be easily launched a 

 strongly supported movement to commemorate the deeds of our 

 soldiers by the memorial plantings of trees on a nation wide scale? 

 Yet it is an actual fact. 



Community Tree Planting. 



The movement, launched I believe by a nurseryman, Mr. Moon, 

 has been fostered and hardly a dissenting voice has been heard. 



