90 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE 



enables them to do so well enough to satisfy those who employ them. 

 Similarly druggists sell drugs without prescriptions of physicians, deal- 

 ers sell spectacles without prescriptions of professional oculists. 



Nevertheless all who can afford it should get advice on matters 

 of landscape design from the best available professional landscape 

 gardener, just as they should get advice as to matters of health from 

 a competent physician. Florists should therefore avoid competing with 

 competent landscape gardeners. 



This principle of specialization of knowledge and its application 

 to human affairs is well known to florists, but for one reason or an- 

 other they do and will continue to practice landscape gardening and it 

 must be acknowledged that to a certain extent and under certain circum- 

 stances they are justified in doing so. 



The direction in which the work of florists in the field of land- 

 scape gardening is usually most open to criticism is in its esthetic 

 qualities. 



The mind of the florist is usually occupied either by practical 

 details or in considering the beauty of particular flowers or plants. 

 This tends to unfit him as a landscape designer. If he is to practice 

 landscape gardening, he should subordinate beauty of plants to the 

 beauty of the composition or design as a whole. In doing so he can- 

 not succeed unless he studies first the requirements of the case, the 

 utilization of its opportunities for landscape beauty, its financial lim- 

 itations and so on. Then he must form in his mind, or on paper, a 

 general plan or solution of the problem embodying such qualities as 

 fitness, harmony, contrast, simplicity or intricacy, proportion, relation 

 of masses, colors and so on. 



But even if he refrains from designing landscape the florist should 

 be an artist. 



The very existence of florists depends upon the public demand for 

 beautiful flowers and garden plants. If the florist is to succeed in 

 the esthetic side of his business he must be endowed with certain 

 esthetic faculties and cultivate them to the point of efficiency. A mere 

 love of flowers is not sufficient, any more than an ear for music would 

 indicate the existence of the qualities required for a successful 

 musician. There must be the power to observe and study, to imagine 

 combinations and modifications of things seen or learned of, to men- 

 tally test them by various standards and rules and by the known effects 

 of similar things that have been or can be seen. There must be the 

 critical faculty, the weighing of advantages and disadvantages, the 

 power to curb impulses and first impressions until reason has passed 

 judgment. Perception, selection, memory, imagination, reason, appli- 

 cation, patience and above all, will power, are some of the more im- 

 portant qualities required for a successful designing florist. All these 

 faculties gain by experience and training and by a favorable 

 environment. 



The visual memory must be stored with beautiful things. Nature 

 is a great storehouse of beautiful things, as well as of ugly things, 

 so a lad should be brought up in a beautiful bit of country rather 



