PLANTS AND PROFIT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVLI, Issue 10, 6 September 1911, Page 41

PLANTS AND PROFIT.

Some amusing evidence- was given during the hearing of the demands of the Nursery and Landscape Gardeners’ Union. In the Canterbury award, owners of private gardens were exempted, blit in Auckland a number of private persons were cited on the ground that they, grew flowers for profit. A Mrs. Brown-Clayton, who confessed that she sometimes got rid of a surplus by exchanging with a seedsman, was informed that her transactions amounted to barter, and she had to give an undertaking to discontinue the practice. This sounded the first note of comedy, and when Professor Thomas was called the argument as to what constituted profit became worthy of the old Greek sophists. It was admitted that the professor reaped no pecuniary gain from his 'bulbs, but Mr. Catley argued that the professor made a profit by extending his knowledge. The professor replied that gardening was with him a hobby, just as some people had a hobby in knocking a ball about with a stick or by toe. If increased knowledge is to be taken as meaning profit, the question crops up as to whether every person who owns a garden does not make a profit. In fact, the greater the financial loss the more knowledge is gained in most things. Alfred Austin has a garden .ml he writes poetry about it, and the poetry s 41s. He thus actually makes money out of it. Dean Hole grew roses, and wrote about them, and he also made money. A writer in the “Field” a few years back said t li it he had gained much useful knowledge while attempting to grow fruit, in New Zealand. Tie had lost a good deal of his capital, but he had acquired a profound insight into the manners ®n<l customs

of the hired boy. This had been useful to him, inasmuch as b- learnt to do his own work. Women always see immense potentialities in a garden. The girl students at Cambridge once asked the Master of Trinity if he would allow them to use his garden for the purpose of playing croquet and tennis with the undergraduates, to which the Master replied that his garden was intended for horticulture not for husbandry. If the term profit is to be extended to mean indirect profit, who is there who does not come under the award’