PLAN No. 266. BOSSING OTHER PEOPLE’S GARDENS, OR GARDEN MANAGEMENT
A suburban resident who knew all about gardens and gardening, yet realized the utter ignorance of the average suburbanite regarding the planting and care of gardens, the prevention and extermination of insect pests, and a lot of other things necessary to know, decided one spring that he would not raise a garden that year, but would make a good living by taking care of other people’s gardens, not doing the work himself, but taking general supervision of it and telling the owners just how it should be done, if they wished to make a success of gardening.
Most of the people in that suburb wanted to raise gardens, but didn’t know how to do it themselves, so they were glad enough to secure the services of this expert at so much for the season, and do as he told them.
He made a careful survey of every garden under contract, noting the soil, slope and general characteristics of the location, named the kind and quantity of seeds or plants, to be given a certain amount of space, the kind of fertilizer, if any, that must be used, the time of planting, the method of cultivation, the symptoms of insect pests, and the kind of spray to be used in their destruction, and every other item of knowledge needed by those who didn’t know but were willing to learn.
The outcome of it all was that that particular suburb was frequently mentioned in the city papers as the one possessing the prize gardens for many miles around, and the owners found them the source of profit instead of loss, besides having the satisfaction of knowing how to do it next year.
And the expert was equally pleased for he had made $2,000 that season by simply telling other people what to do.