244 THE PHIL ADELPHIA FLORIST. [Deck 



fa 



[^ However, I would rather, and many besides me would, that instead 



of the Herculean labor of anglicising Greek names, when every day, 

 the English as well as other tongues must be Hellenized, if I may 

 say so, for want of proper expression, he would try to kill the Hydra 

 of misery, which has more heads than the serpent of Lerna. or to 

 suffocate that other Anteus of ignorance and superstition which de- 

 grades and brutifies so many millions of men. Your remark struck 

 me so much the more as I had an idea, that this great promoter of 

 useless reform— who, with J. J. Rousseau, thinks that a man can be 

 a great botanist without knowing the name of one plant ! strange 

 aberration ! that this man would not perhaps write a word to eradi- 

 cate the vices which consume society, nor give a farthing to alleviate 

 the misery from whence the same vices are derived. If he is such a 

 philanthropist as to reform the Greek names of plants for the benefit 

 of gardeners and the illiterate, for I suppose he does not anglicise 

 these names for scientific men, for the learned, for Decandolle, De 

 Jussieu, Asa Gray, Torrey, Blume, Brogniart, De Vriese,Fischer, &c; 

 for these men without being Hercules, know as much about Alpha 

 and Omega as he does: but although he is a philanthropist, and 1 

 am only a proletarian, and would be no doubt an outcast, to the gen- 

 tleman who lately christened the Saxe-Gotha, and Fitz-Roya, (by 

 the way, how will he anglicise those names'?) I will tell him how he 

 would be a useful reformer ; but perhaps you do not allow men of my 

 stamp to give advice through your columns, so I will keep my advice 

 until it is called for. 



1 think with you that the magazines should not be filled with ti- 

 rades against British and other gardeners, when these gardeners 

 shall have tried to make their deeds agree with their talk; when their 

 words will be consistent with their actions, when they shall have 

 shown to the American Horticultural public, not that they have done 

 this or that at home, but have done it here, in the United States, in 

 the grand Republic of America, the home of all of us. 



Gardeners will be respected as other persons, when they shall have 

 made themselves respectable; when most of them have ceased to con- 

 sider themselves as mere lacqueys; when they will have the sentiment 

 of their own dignity ; w T hen they will command the respect of their 

 employers, not by the idle talk of having been the gardener of such 

 a one, but by their doings and good behavior; when they will have 

 instructed themselves in their art, for I call gardening an art — an art 

 which is viliified by a large majority of those who practise it. If gar- 

 deners are not better considered in most cases it is their own fault : 

 What do most of them care for] High wages and little to do. Let 

 the employer be satisfied or not ; as long as he pays, that is enough : 

 jJ and do they think such principles deserve consideration — I do not. 



s^39^ «&&& 



