852 



The Weekly Florists^ Review^ 



AuGOST 23, 1906. 



Trade Exhibit of M. Rice & G)^ Philadelphia, at Dayton, O. 



have built themselves gardens > and who 

 are looking for partners, rather than for 

 hired help, to enable them to accomplish 

 this end. It is perfectly fitting and 

 proper to consider the ideal gardener in 

 the former relationship rather than the 

 latter, and no intelligent proprietor will 

 demur to the spirit of such association. 



The Man and His Needed Traits. 



What kind of a personality will he 

 have who will fill the measure of this 

 desire for happiness, and at the same 

 time seize the opportunity to exalt the 

 status of his beloved profession and 

 raise himself to the high social, economic 

 and educational plane to which he natu- 

 rally and properly belongs? Let us con- 

 sider the last part of this theme first, 

 and discover what duties will be re- 

 quired of him, or, in other words, what 

 is his work, and afterwards try to fit 

 the man to it. 



The common idea among young gar- 

 deners who are ready and feel qualified 

 to take charge of important places is 

 that the measure of these duties should 

 be included within the following limits: 

 To be able to grow the regular run of 

 greenhouse stock successfully, including 

 orchids, so that when exhibition times 

 come around they may gather in some 

 prizes and nail the cards up in the pot- 

 ting-shed, to the great glory of the 

 house, and to their own emolument. In- 

 cidentally, they expect to supply the 

 house with flowers in limited quantities 

 of their own selection, and to grow fruit 

 under glass. They consider the kitchen 

 garden to be part of their sphere, al- 

 though as a rule they have had very 

 little experience in that department ; 

 also the pleasure grounds, with which 

 they have had still less. At first sight 

 it does seem that the list includes about 

 all that should be required of the aver- 

 age gardener, and if he were a master in 

 every branch mentioned he would cer- 

 tainly be pretty well equipped as a 

 workman. 



A ^ide Ran£e of Duties. 



The duties of the ideal gardener, how- 

 ever, cover a much wider range. He has 

 formed a partnership with the propri- 

 etor, the object of which is to produce 

 a certain indefinable, intangible thing 

 called happiness; primarily, the happi- 

 ness of the latter and also that of his 



own, as a natural corollary. With this 

 in view, he will seek to discover the bent 

 of his employer and, having found it, to 

 guide it into practical channels. His 

 common sense will often come into con- 

 flict with whimsical desires, but with 

 plenty of tact and a desire to serve, this 

 will not be a serious source of trouble. 

 He will be required to plan and lay out 

 an entirely new place, erect greenhouses, 

 put in water supply, survey and grade 

 land, build drives, handle large bodies 

 of men intelligently, study up-to-date 

 methods and apjpliances, such as labor- 

 saving machinery, insecticides and fer- 

 tilizers; scoffing at nothing because of 

 its strangeness, but testing desirable 

 things intelligently with a view to con- 

 ducting the place with economy and 

 facility. One of his most delicate du- 

 ties will be to preserve peace and har- 

 mony among his fellow employees, listen- 

 ing to the complaints of his subordinates 

 with a judicial and kindly ear, and 

 pleading their cause with their employer. 

 To the younger gardeners under his 

 charge he owes a peculiar and sacred 

 duty. Having trodden the path before 

 them, he is in a position to know their 

 desires and ambitions, and shoulQ use 

 every effort for their upbuilding into 

 iaeal men and gardeners. Short hours 

 of labor, liberal wages, libraries, oppor- 

 tunities to attend lectures and exhibi- 

 tions, encouragement to form or join 

 clubs, and above all, a kindly personal 

 interest in their welfare, easily lie with- 

 in his power to promote. 



His Personality. 



In providing the various garden prod- 

 ucts, he should study the trend of fash- 

 ionable taste, and try to forestall the 

 demand in this respect, it being always 

 extremely pleasing to the proprietor to 

 find himself the possessor of the newest 

 things in flowers, fruits and vegetables. 

 On the other hand, it is bad taste on the 

 gardener's part to persistently attempt 

 to force his own particular hobby on an 

 unwilling employer; this is undoubt- 

 edly a rock on which many a good man 

 goes to pieces. It is the duty, and 

 should be the pleasure, of the gardener 

 to treat friends of the proprietor with 

 courtesy and respect; this admonition is 

 particularly applicable in cases when 

 married children, or other relatives, lo- 

 cate permanently on the home estate, 



and whose presence there is often con- 

 sidered by the gardener as an intrusion. 

 Generally this involves merely the pro- 

 duction of more garden stuff of every 

 kind, which means more labor, a matter 

 which the iaeal gardener can easily ad- 

 just by frankly explaining it to his 

 employer. 



A thousand other duties might be enu- 

 merated which attach to the ideal gar- 

 dener of today, which in years gone by 

 were supposed to be outside of his prov- 

 ince. Far from considering these added 

 burdens, however, he should welcome 

 them as indications of increased oppor- 

 tunities and tributes to his advanced in- 

 telligence. 



Needs the Best Education. 



To meet these requirements success- 

 fully, what kind of a man is needed? 

 Certainly one with the most complete 

 education in the knowledge and cultiva- 

 tion of plants that can be conceived. 

 This should have begun in the lowest 

 grades of the grammar school, and con- 

 tinued through every step of school life, 

 not as a theory or dry recital of facts, 

 but out in the garden and field. Happily 

 this important feature in the education 

 of every child, whether destined for the 

 horticultural profession or not, is be- 

 ginning to be recognized by our public 

 educators. In the case of the ideal gar- 

 dener, of course, this study should never 

 cease; it should include a knowledge of 

 the lower organisms, both vegetable and 

 animal, which we call diseases, also that 

 of the insect and animal world in gen- 

 eral, in so far as it affects plant life for 

 good or ill. 



A knowledge of physics, especially 

 that branch pertaining to mechanics; of 

 chemistry to the extent that he may ap- 

 preciate the relative values of different 

 elements in soil, air and water; to know 

 the effects of various chemicals on in- 

 sect life, and the poisons that are con- 

 tained in many plants, with their anti- 

 dotes — these would be extremely useful. 

 The fundamental laws of art, wherein it 

 is shown that harmony of colors and 

 forms follows as fixed and well-defined 

 rules as those that exist in the phenom- 

 ena of sound, should be understood. This 

 would naturally include a study of the 

 principles of landscape gardening, of 

 elementary land surveying and the use 

 of the instruments connected therewith. 



