Evening star., 1932-08-12
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

determined friends and acquaintance.
This will not be his only ground Ior
expertship, however. -
Actually he will know more, in all
likelihood because he will put more
time. work, intelligence and money on
his hobby, buoyed up by this faith OF
others in him.
His very ease among so many and
so long words will tend to give him a
faith in himself which other less hardy
souls will lack.
Utterly aside from what plain merits
he may have, however, he will discover
that there are many perfectly simple
ways Of working himself up as COM
pleat expert" in gardening.
One of the best of these is to affect
a disdain where one feels It not, !. e.,
pretend to "despise" certain well known
varieties of flowers, particularly OF
roses, and Immediately speak loudly In
the praise of some perfectly new variety
of which your listeners never heard,
and which may or may not turn out
to be half as good as the old rose be
loved by every one.
Nothing will crush the spirit Of an
INQUIRER quite so fatty as this attack.
1t is a guaranteed way to permit one
to pose as an expert.
See to it that the enthusiastic
gardener who knows what he likes, but
may not be able to pronounce its name,
is annihilated beneath a whitening
cross-ire of praise of some variety
utterly unknown to him.
Never make the mistake of saying his
favorite has no points of merit. Rather
damn it with faint praise, so that he
will see that you have nothing against
it. except that it has been far. far
surpassed.
Another good way to set up as an
expert is to put great deal OF stress
on the necessity of belonging to garden
clubs
This is sure way to dim the spirit
of some ambitious lover of plants who
foolishlessly thought that to grow gooo
flowers was a reward all by itself.
No. tell him, unless he sits at some
dull meeting where no one knows any
more than he. but where every one
| thinks he knows it all, he is missing q
great deal in gardening.
TRY to convey to him the idea that
the real gardening is not in the garden
at all, as he so abSurdly thought, oul
rather comes in the meeting hall, where
experiences" are interchanged.
| Let him understand, too, that flower
| shows are the essential mark OF a gar
| dener amateur or professional, and that
no one can claim to know anything al
all about the subject unless he has
permitted some maiden lady to give hel
! individual judgment as to the best II
the show" although every last person
in attendance might direct an entirely
different verdict.
By following a few such easy rules
V1nthinO nanTf
! heinous than a vast amount OF plain
brass and gall, almost any one can SCI
up as garden expert"
It Is amazing how this reputation
grows, like a snow ball rolled arounc
the yard in season.
Here is a good, honest gardener, who
never had any idea of claiming to bt
exceptional in any way, who, neverthe-
less finds himself Cor herself, usually
pitchforked into neighborhood proml-
nence.
"Mr. Jones says so and so,' or Mrs
Jones wouldn't do that; she would DC
this"
Such Is the making Of an expert,
often one whose claims some humol'
old fellow, who might not know how
to speak properly, could show up ir
few weeks in any garden.
There Is many man who has hvef
to bless his stars that he was educated
at some smaller college where the com
petition was not so keen, and wher'
he had a chance to display what abih
ties he possessed.
No doubt there are scores of "gar
den experts" loose in the world whit
reached that eminence largely because
they were fortunate enough to be biz
frogs in little puddles, and could pro
nounce "gladiolus" and "gladioli' with
out batting an eve.