30 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
REGARDING IDEAS. 
I have always written to The NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
with a great deal of pleasure, for it does undoubtedly 
accord the privilege to a writer to choose his subject. 
This is more than divers of its contemporaries can honestly 
claim. Certain pundits are pretty sure to consign any 
expression of opinion which differs from their narrow 
notions, to the waste basket, and they may continue to 
be narrow for me. If these fine fellows paid for articles, 
perhaps a body could put up with them, but they are no 
more anxious to do that than give prominence to a 
difference of opinion. There are two or three journals 
devoted to the culture of the soil, always liberal to 
honest expressions, and I am pleased to recognize The 
National Nurseryman as one of them. 
As to teaching the science of the nursery business in 
the public schools—is it practicable? Haven't the poor 
bairns far more crowded upon them already than they 
can assimilate? In my opinion they have, and it is an 
open question if their ill-digested pabulum isn’t trans¬ 
forming them into the most conceited lot of parrots in 
creation. There is no question but the schools at any 
rate succeed in teaching them to believe that they are 
competent to undertake anything. You remark that 
botany has been introduced into many schools. What 
sort of botany ? Try some of your graduates—just for 
fun, and I’ll venture that 95 out of every hundred of them 
will fail to tell you how many classes there are among 
flowering plants! Such botany is of mighty little use to 
them. They collect a few wayside weeds and some 
effort is made toward their dissection ; a twisted Latin or 
Greek name is forced upon their distracted attention, 
which is sure to be different to most other people’s 
twisted Greek and Latin ; and this you call a “ curriculum ” 
do you ? 
Mr. Editor! I am writing in all seriousness, the botan¬ 
ists of this world have a vast deal to answer for; among 
them they have made a useful and delightful science 
positively repellant, and if ninety-nine of every hundred 
had been illiterate mutes, we might have been spared 
their synonomy, their irreconcilable classification, their 
variable terminology, and often their overweening self- 
complacency. Before the children can grow up with a 
love for plants and trees and flowers you must give them 
something easier and more enjoyable than the intermin¬ 
able stuff you call a “ curriculum.” Suppose you turn 
your attention to the public pleasure grounds and see to 
it that such men as Falconer and Pettigrew are filled 
into places like Pittsburg and Brooklyn. There are 
thirty-two Kew gardeners in this country, and so far as 
I can learn Falconer is the second one to find his way 
into a public park, and the first to be given charge of one. 
And yet every man of them can select, agreeably present 
and foster more love for the nurserymen’s products than 
all the botanists combined. They are practical enough 
to select those things that will endure the climate and 
beautify the landscape. They know just enough of 
botany to use a single set of names, are content to follow 
accepted authorities, and follow them understandingly. 
The topsy-turvydom of newfangled Dutch systemization 
is unnecessary to them, it fails to charm them, and they 
Can watch the wallowing of new school professors with 
complacency. 
But it is not the simplification of terms alone that is 
desirable. Simplification of presentation may also be 
compassed, and the individuality of nursery products, 
their nature, their characteristics, may be blended with 
co-relative beauty. This the botanist of the herbarium, 
or the botanist of the garden has never done, and is quite 
incapable of doing. In every known case he has been 
wedded to different kinds of lineal artifice. 
In a word, then, it is garden and park botany presented 
in attractively arranged living plants that is needed, and 
not the herbarium. It may be thought that I am hostile 
to botanists and herbariums—not so—but I am hostile 
to their perpetuating confusion, hostile to their monopo¬ 
lizing funds for mere crank paper work, and making the 
practical application of botany unattainable. The build¬ 
ings, bridges, stone roads, big unworkable conservatories, 
tunnels, heterogeneous fripperies in planting may secure 
professors apprenticeships in gardens, with themselves as 
masters, but they teach the children no atom of intelli¬ 
gence that will make them appreciate a nurseryman’s 
stock. 
Again: If professorships are to be desired on the one 
hand, and nursery education only to be had by such slow 
drudgery as regular apprenticeship, people will teach 
themselves, and the product will be as it begins to be— 
“A woman florist.—5 everblooming roses.—Red, 
white, pink, yellow and blush for 10 cts —All will bloom 
this summer.—4 superb roses given away.—Rare sweet 
peas free!—50 cents worth of seed for 10c.” 
Let the nurserymen take a trifle more pride in such 
institutions as will exhibit their products in the simplest, 
most consistent, intelligible, and beautiful manner, and 
the public will be dull indeed if such practical appeal be 
in vain. Take a hand in politics sometimes and see to it 
that colonels, and coachmen, and professional tailors are 
not appointed to the natural plant schools of the country 
—while Kew gardeners, for instance, are “on tramp” 
(as Mr. Hale recommends) for want of a suitable position, 
or grubbing willows in a bog, as one of your Rochester 
readers may remember was the case a few years ago. 
In the meantime there is improvement, and if my out¬ 
spoken protest touch the nerve of a single individual I 
can easily reconcile myself to a few enemies, for they are 
too narrow even to spend a postage stamp. 
In twenty-five years of writing I have hinted much and 
suggested more. I have watched professional (?) medio¬ 
crity copy, and appropriate, and blunder. 
Meantime the poor children know just about as well 
as their grandsires whether the capacity of your nursery 
climate stands for 3,000 species or thirty. 
Trenton, N. J. James MacPherson. 
