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Apbil 29, 1920 



The Florists' Review 



21 



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HELPING HORTICULTURE 



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OUR trades or professions 

 are directly interested in 

 ornamental horticulture. 

 The business of the florist 

 is to produce or grow 

 plants and flowers and to 

 use them, especially the 

 latter, in artistic arrange- 

 ments for various pur- 

 poses; his chief work may 

 be described as the forcing of flowering 

 plants. The nurseryman is also inter- 

 ested in the production of plants, but 

 particularly plants for the decoration 

 of the yard, estate, park or avenue. It 

 is the business of the landscape gar- 

 dener or landscape architect, which- 

 ever you choose to call him, to paint 

 living pictures, using for his material 

 the plants grown for his use by the 

 nursei^man and florist. The gardener 's 

 forte is mainly to care for plants and 

 to carry out the ideas of the landscape 

 architect. The landscape architect and 

 the gardener differ from the members 

 of the first two groups by not being 

 venders of the plants they grow. 



One may become proficient in any of 

 these trades or professions either by 

 the apprentice method or by means of 

 a college training. I am omitting men- 

 tion of the vocational school, since it 

 has not become so important in Amer- 

 ica as in Europe. 



The apprentice usually starts out at 

 an early age to receive his training by 

 direct contact with his 

 VMrk or, in other words, 

 by means of manual labor. 

 His first work is usually 

 = washing pots, p u 1 1 i n ]? 

 weeds, wheeling soil or 

 some similar occupation. 

 He continues at his labor 

 from day to day, absorbing 

 what he may, but mainly 

 doing as he is told without 

 being given any explana- 

 tion. If he is "faithful in 

 his work, he is too tired at 

 the end of the day to at- 

 tempt to improve his mind 

 or his work by study, un- 

 less he is an exceptional 

 man; then he studies in ad- 

 dition to his work and so 

 advances more rapidly. At 

 the end of a long term of 

 years the apprentice may 

 be judged to be proficient 

 enough to be placed in 

 class A. 



Learning Why. 



The college man, on the 

 other hand, has been con- 

 tinuing his education, 

 training his mind and col- 

 lecting data and learning 

 how to use them. He is 

 working at his mental up- 

 building without being 

 hampered by overtired 

 muscles. At the end of his 

 college career he is ready 

 to take up his work, but 

 from a different viewpoint; 

 he not only strives to do 

 tilings, bnt tries, also, to 



The address, on "Educational and Experi- 

 mental Work," delivered by Professor H. B. 

 Dorner, liead of the division of floriculture of the 

 University of Illinois, Urbana, at the meeting 

 of the executive committee of the Canadian 

 Horticultural Association, Hamilton, Ont., April 

 12, 1920. 



understand the why and the wherefore. 

 To express it in another way, the 

 apprentice, at an early age and with 

 no training, attempts to climb the lad- 

 der of success. The climb is a hard 

 one. The college man, on the other 

 hand, prepares himself for the ordeal 

 and, when he begins to climb, climbs 

 with greater ease and rapidity. 



Three Fields of College Work. 



All educational institutions, or at 

 least those giving attention to agricul- 

 ture, should offer courses in ornamental 

 horticulture and every man interested 

 in floriculture, landscape gardening or 

 nursery work should be back of them, 

 insisting on the best of instructional 

 work and research. Improvement in 

 agriculture helps to feed the people 

 better, but ornamental horticulture, in 

 coniunction with music, painting and 

 literature, stands for higher civilization. 



Good staffs and well equipped re- 

 search laboratories are essential and 

 should be established, since the aver- 

 age commercial man has neither the 

 time nor the training to do accurate 

 experimental work. 



The work of any school or college at- 



Herman B. Dorner. 



tempting to be of service to ornamental 

 horticulture may be divided into three 

 branches — instruction, research and ex- 

 tension. 



If instruction in ornamental horti- 

 culture is to be offered, shall it be voca- 

 tional, that is, teach the student how 

 to do things, or shall the university 

 method be employed and the student 

 taught why to do things! I am of the 

 opinion that the two should be com- 

 bined. Above all things, teach the 

 theory, but add enough of the practical 

 to help fix the theory. There need not 

 be enough of the practical to lower the 

 work below the dignity of university 

 grade, unless the course be purely voca- 

 tional. Where nothing but the theory 

 is offered the student often loses the 

 benefit of it before he has an opportu- 

 nity to apply it. 



There is another distinction between 

 a vocational and college course that 

 should be recognized. The graduate 

 from a vocational school is recognized 

 as a machinist or a gardeaer, while the 

 college graduate, at the end of his four 

 to six years, has merely laid a founda- 

 tion upon which to build. The tendency 

 of the employer is to expect too much of 

 the college graduate and if, after grad- 

 uation, he is not able to do everything 

 that it took his employer from twenty 

 to forty years to learn, his education 

 is considered valueless. The employer, 

 on the other hand, who looks upon the 

 college training merely as a 

 foundation soon perceives 

 its value. 



The question might well 

 be asked, then: "What is 

 the student to study in col- 

 lege in order to fit himself 

 for his chosen branch in 

 horticulture t" The courses 

 which the student will 

 choose will naturally come 

 under three heads: First, 

 informational courses; 

 second, courses to train the 

 mind, and third, courses 

 which will teach him to ex- 

 press his thoughts clearly 

 and forcibly. 



Getting Facts. 



I have intentionally 

 placed the informational 

 courses first, not because 

 they are of the greatest im- 

 portance, but because they 

 are easily recognized as 

 being essential to the best 

 understanding of the work. 

 If it is merely information 

 that the student wants, 

 however, there is no need 

 for his spending his time 

 and money at college. He 

 can easily get that by read- 

 ing and by contact with 

 his fellow men. 



The development of the 

 reasoning powers, the abil- 

 ity to think clearly and the 

 ability to draw conclusions 

 correctly are surely the 

 most important. These 

 powers can best be de- 





