1862:] THE PHILADELPHIA FLORIST .^ 121 



weyes, is merely an idea deduced from the facts themselves. While we 

 V would be willing to allow all due weight to what is understood 

 i by the word practice, we must not give undue importance to details of 

 operations carried out in ignorance of fundamental laws which govern 

 matter in all its changes. The practical gardener is a mere machine 

 without the light of science ; and by this we would imply, not the 

 rigid technical terms unchanged, and supposed to be unchangeable, in 

 use in the schools, but a knowledge of at least the accidence of Natu- 

 ral Philosophy, comprising as it does the laws of motion, the influence 

 of matter on matter ; the composition of the crust of the globe ; the 

 laws of heat and moisture, and a little of vegetable physiology, with 

 its copartners, Botany, Entomology, Zoology. But the working gar- 

 dener despairs, for he is a man of limited means — limited in leisure, 

 and some might suppose in intellect. Not so, however. Delving in 

 soil, or as we call it,, dirt, does not imply intellectual incapacity — on 

 the contrary, with a due regard to other conditions, it invigorates the 

 intellect, and although the "earth worm" stoops his back, and with 

 prone front pursues his avocation, yet he can re-elevate himself, and 

 be a man again. 



Why are there not more American gardeners'? Because it would 

 seem to them an occupation unworthy their high intellectual charac- 

 ter and elevated ideas of human excellence. Why do we foreigners 

 all the drudgery 1 This is a question of political as well as moral 

 bearing. I shall leave its solution to more deep thinkers, those who 

 tell us that •' almost all our gardeners are Irish or English, with a few 

 Scotch ;" or transpose it, Scotch and English, with a few Irish — al- 

 ways put the Irish last, for if you let them at the head they will make 

 a fuss ; but here I have placed them in their comparative position. — 

 There are more gardeners from Scotland than from either England or 

 Ireland. W r e wish there were more natives among us, for the credit 

 of our profession. This article is rather an "omnibus," but w r e must 

 reach its point. We would desire to establish a better feeling amongst 

 us 5 to do away with these distinctions of country or section of coun- 

 try, would hide the dark fact from American eyes that we are jealous- 

 minded. Let those re-echo the humiliating fact who seem disposed 

 to perpetuate animosity. We must meet it, if true — deny it, if fdse. 

 Yes, our gardeners are for the most part foreigners — strangprs to our 

 climate ; aliens, if you will, to our race. But how can this defect be 

 remedied 7 . — only by making them as much as may be, American citi- 

 zens and true republicans. Try to forget they are so, when at times 

 \ the peculiar views characteristic of their trans-Atlantic origin force 

 r themselves in, give no more importance to these trifles than is their / 

 r' due — 



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