Overcoming handicaps

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.