A7BIL 13, 1905. 



TheWeekly Flo^ts^ Review. 



J223 



Why Does Youth Stand Aloof ? 



Time was when boys, after graduat- 

 ing from our grammar schools, asked 

 for work in our greenhouses. They were 

 not set to wheeling coal and throwing 

 out ashes, but carrying away flats of 

 plants and taught to set them on the 

 bench straight and level. If they had 

 any aptitude for the business they grad- 

 ually acquired the mechanical parts of 

 the business, and if they drew your at- 

 tention to some plants wanting water 

 or a house needing ventilation and, 

 above all, if they were endowed with the 

 divine attribute of order, then they 

 made gardeners, and with sincere joy 

 and gratitude we ^n point to several 

 young men now in business or holding 

 good positions whom your humble serv- 

 ant first taught" to set a plant level or 

 handle the hose. 



Why we have few or none of this kind 

 now I know not. Is it because the 

 youths of today want to wear good 

 clothes and not dirty their hands, or is 

 it because they see no money in the 

 job? If the latter, it is a mistake, for 

 I claim that any bright young man who 

 can take charge of three or four houses, 

 without expecting to know everything, 

 will command as good, if not better, 

 wages than the ordinary mechanic, and 

 far better wages than the ordinary well- 

 dressed clerk or salesman in most mer- 

 cantile businesses. 



As for social standing, that depends 

 entirely on the individual himself. Of 

 course ability has everything to do with 

 wages and advancement, as in every 

 other business, but in few as much as 

 in ours. A builder can tell in five min- 

 utes whether a man is a carpenter, or 

 bricklayer, or painter. "We cam tell 

 whether a man can shift a plant neatly 

 and quickly, but that is a small part of 

 it. The same man may let a house of 

 plants burn up or shrivel for want of 

 water. A man or boy who wUl pass an 

 azalea with its flowers drooping and 

 dying for want of water with indiffer- 

 ence or without wincing with pain will 

 never be a gardener worth his salt, and 

 should at once enter the ministry. 



Our fine flower store clerks or shop- 

 men are mostly evolved from the errand 

 boy, and a very good way it is. From 

 delivering parcels they get a new suit, 

 are larger in stature, and assist behind 

 the counter, and in time, if their abil- 

 ity keeps pace with their ambition, they 

 are known as Messrs. Jones & Bro. 's 

 artist. You can easily get lads for er- 

 rand boys, and young men as assist- 

 ants in the store, because the latter is 

 more "genteel" than working among 

 the plants, but I doubt if there is as 

 much chance for promotion or an equal 

 opportunity to gain a lucrative and in- 

 dependent position. 



A Word to Employers. 



Perhaps the shyness of lads to work 

 in our houses is a good deal the em- 

 ployer's own fault. There is no need 

 of making a drudge of a young boy. It 

 breaks his heart, figaratively speaking. 

 Praise good work as well as correct that 

 which is slovenly. Alas! we are not 

 all alike, nor any two alike, and you 

 cannot put brains into a boy if they 

 were not a birthday gift; but this gift, 

 much or little, can be cultivated and 

 encouraged. This, however, is too big 

 and deep a phase of the subject. 



You never saw a really great gar- 

 dener or horticulturist who was not lib- 

 erally endowed with brains. He could 



Primala Veris Superba. 



not be one without the other, so do not 

 expect that every lad you start working 

 is an embryo Loudon and Lindley. 

 There is room for many young men at 

 good wages who can handle plants dex- 

 terously and diligently, even if some- 

 body else has to do the thinking for 

 them. 



You may ask what induced W. S. to 

 write this screed. It is because I have 

 noticed at home, and heard from those 

 who travel, how scarce are good green- 

 house men, and if boys had been tak- 

 ing hold of the business the past ten 

 years this would not be the case. 



We have noticed of late a lot of old 

 laborers in a greenhouse — good, worthy 

 men with the hoe and spade and the 

 rake — but as much out of place in a 

 greenhouse as the powerful bull in a 

 china shop. Young boys, there is a 

 bright opportunity for you in horti- 

 culture, especially in this country. It is 

 only in its infancy as yet. The meas- 

 ure of your success will be in propor- 

 tion to your diligence, application and 

 intelligence. For one you may meet 

 with who does not know when he has a 

 good man, there are ten who do, and 

 who will pay you all that you are worth. 



And, employer, study. Study the 

 youthful, plastic mind. Teach and en- 

 courage and show him with your own 

 hands how things ought to be done, and 

 if there is any good at all in the boy 



he will bless you in years to come. And 

 the respect and good wishes of those 

 you have employed are not the least of 

 blessings to cherish. 



The Demands We Make. - _' 



We ask but little of our greenhouse 

 gardener, compared with the all-round 

 gardener of fifty years ago. A man 

 competent to take charge of a fine pri- 

 vate garden in Great Britain would be 

 expected to be well versed in a wide 

 field of horticulture, and many a worthy 

 man we can call to mind, and some 

 with reverence, who were landscape gar- 

 deners of a high order, grew all kinds 

 of hardy fruits and every culinary vege- 

 table, forced exotic fruits of many 

 kinds, as well as grapes, pineapples, 

 peaches, nectarines and strawberries 

 under glass, grew all the species of 

 palms then known, as well as most of 

 the economic plants, kept the conserva- 

 tories gay- the year round with flow- 

 ers, acres in the flower garden, and add 

 to this a so-called American garden, a 

 hardy fernery, a tropical one, houses de- 

 voted to ericas, another to camellias and 

 cool house plants, another to the Vic- 

 toria Regia and other aquatics, and a 

 hundred other features" that converted 

 fifty acres into a paradise. All this a 

 head gardener was supposed to be, and 

 in many cases was, master of. We don't 

 ask the modern gardener to know all 



