THE UNLETTERED BOY WHO BECAME A TREE DOCTOR
One day, more than seventy years ago, in Somersetshire, England, a
four year-old boy was watching his father plant potatoes. The man was
a poor tenant farmer and the little boy, whose name was John Davey,
never lost a chance of seeing his father work. Young though he was, it
seemed to John Davey that the most wonderful things in the world were
the things which grew in gardens and fields. Flowers, vegetables or
grain; how could these things spring out of tiny seeds that were sown
in the ground? That was what puzzled the little fellow. Suddenly he
turned to his father and asked if he might plant a potato. His father
smiled and gave him one, telling him to cut it in two, and explaining
how it should be put into the ground. John was very much excited, but
he was much too little to handle the shovel, so his father got him an
iron spoon. John cut the potato in two, planted it in the ground, and
covered it with earth.
For weeks after, in fact for the whole of that summer, little John
Davey looked after the potato that he had planted. He hoed it, and
watered it, and cared for it as a mother does a child. It is not to
be wondered at that when the time came to dig up the potatoes John’s
little patch had the biggest ones in the whole garden, and there was no
prouder or more excited boy in England.
There were very few schools in those days, and as no one was compelled
to go, and even small children could earn money, most boys, and even
girls of poor families, did not go to school, but were sent straight
to work. When John Davey was eight years old he was sent to work on
neighbouring farms for sixpence a day. The little fellow often spent
twelve hours a day weeding vegetables until his back seemed as if it
would break. There was no time for play and as he could neither read
or write, there was practically nothing to do but work and sleep. When
he was thirteen his mother died and as there was a large family the
children were all sent out to work for different farmers. John had by
this time learned a great deal about farming. There was very little
that he could not do; and he was also anxious to do his best.
On the farm where he was sent to work, there was a rough teamster, much
given to the use of profane language, and John had to share his room
and bed with this man. He had been taught to pray each night, but the
first night he slept in that room he hesitated. He was afraid of the
swearing teamster, but when the man got into bed, John knelt down to
pray. The man was talking in the darkness, but as he got no replies he
put out his hand, and it rested on John’s head. Then it dawned upon
the rough man that John was praying. To the lad’s surprise the man was
deeply moved and asked John to forgive him for his profane language.
John worked on this farm for seven years. There was nothing about
a farm that he did not learn to do. He worked fourteen and even
sixteen hours a day. When night came he was utterly exhausted. Then
something happened which gave him an ambition. He and another young
man were putting slates on a roof when this youth took a small piece
of slate and with it wrote his name upon another slate. John Davey was
astonished and all at once a great longing came to him that he might
learn to read and write. He felt sure that if this young man could do
it, he could.
When he was twenty he went to work at Torquay. Up to this time he had
never even seen the inside of a school. He could neither read nor
write, in fact he did not know all the letters of the alphabet. One
of the small churches in Torquay had an evening class for those who,
never having been to school, were anxious to learn. John Davey joined
this class and at once began to master the alphabet and to learn to
form letters. While he was almost a man in years, and a first-class
worker on the farm, he did not know any more about reading or writing
than many children of five to-day. The farm where he worked was two
miles from Torquay, so early each morning he walked the two miles,
worked hard for twelve hours, trudged the two miles home again, and
then tackled his studies. Soon he made progress and he bought a New
Testament and a dictionary. These two books became his companions. He
carried them everywhere he went, and whenever he had a few minutes to
spare he began reading one of them. When working in the fields, at
lunch hour, he would often crawl under a hawthorn hedge and hold a
slice of bread in one hand and the New Testament in the other.
The heavy strain soon told on him. He had been a healthy boy. At
fifteen he had often carried two hundred and forty-eight pounds of
wheat up a flight of stairs. But he broke down in health and had to go
home. Before long, however, he was back at his work again and some one
gave him a small hymn-book. This gave him great delight. He had now
three books, and he read the hymn-book so much that he could recite
many hymns from memory.
All this time his love for flowers and bees increased. It became the
greatest passion of his life. He studied them until he knew more about
them than any man in the countryside. He was given a situation in some
conservatories and such was his knowledge and willingness to work that
by the end of the year he was in charge of the work.
One day, a clergyman, who had noticed his eager ambition to get on,
suggested that in the United States there were many opportunities for
young people. John Davey had never thought of emigrating, but from that
day he determined to go to the United States. He had practically no
money, but he sold rose trees to get his passage money and at the age
of twenty-six he arrived in America and found work as a labourer at
Warren, Ohio. There was a good deal of unemployment at the time, but
his eagerness to work, and his thorough way of doing things, stood him
in good stead, and he was never out of a job.
There was a private school in Warren and John found out that the
position of janitor was vacant. He was still working as a labourer, but
he secured the position and mornings and evenings he looked after the
buildings, for which he was given tuition. At this time he used to rise
at three o’clock in the mornings, take a brisk walk, then study for
three hours. After that he attended to his duties as a janitor before
going to his day’s work. In spite of having so much to do, he made
rapid progress with his studies and in the Latin examination he secured
ninety-eight as a mark.
His reputation as a gardener soon spread and he was given a position
as caretaker of flowers in a cemetery. He made the grounds so gorgeous
that soon people began to come for many miles to see it. When people
asked how he secured such wonderful results he said it was the result
of hard work and close study. He said that there was no such thing as
luck in the garden. Everything must be carefully studied, even a minute
knowledge of the various insects which destroy plants was necessary.
About this time there was a man who had a magnificent tree, sixty feet
high and four feet in diameter, but it was dying, and everybody whom
he consulted said that nothing could arrest the decay. At last the
man sent for John Davey, although it did seem as if the tree were too
far gone to recover. Davey most carefully examined the tree, then he
stripped away every semblance of decay; every dead twig and branch was
cut off and the cavities carefully filled. He applied all the knowledge
he had gained from many years of experience. Soon the tree responded to
the treatment and to the delight of its owner it took on a new lease of
life.
This incident added greatly to his reputation and requests for his
services began to pour in. Another man had a very fine elm tree,
over five feet in diameter, which was dying. All who saw it said it
was doomed and that Davey would be unable to do anything. He himself
recognized that to revive it would be very difficult. Many people
openly scoffed at his attempts and said that he was “crack-brained.”
He treated the tree by pruning the roots. He dug trenches, sixty feet
from the centre of the tree, cut off the extremities and revived the
roots. At first his attempts seemed an utter failure. When spring came
and other trees sent forth their green buds, not a thing appeared on
the branches of the huge elm. People laughed, but John Davey waited
patiently. He knew that the tree would be long in awaking from its
winter sleep. Soon there were signs of life, and within a few weeks
such was the profusion of buds that people came from long distances to
see its beauty. It was a complete triumph for Davey and his reputation
as a tree specialist was firmly established.
He published a book called “The Tree Doctor,” in which he made public
the many wonderful things he had learned about trees. The information
was invaluable and it is safe to say that millions of trees have been
saved by those who have followed his instructions. His views have been
accepted everywhere as authoritative, and it is said by many that John
Davey has more practical knowledge about trees than any one else in the
world.
He established an institute for young men who wished to take up the
study of trees and flowers. His two sons have been associated with
him in that work for many years. And so it has come to pass that the
lad who began to work hard at eight years of age, and who at twenty
could not write his own name, and did not even know all the letters
of the alphabet, has become a world figure by his sheer pluck and
determination.