1869.] THE KITCHEN-GARDEN. 27 



manage or learn. It takes in a far wider rangfe of society than any 

 oth^r department. Neither the jDrince nor tbe peasant can neglect it 

 with impunity. Most gardeners find the kitchen their most ticklish 

 latitude, one from which demands ever come with the most relentless 

 steadiness, which cannot be shirked on any pretence. And he who can 

 satisfy these demands every day in the 3^ear, has reason to congratulate 

 himself on being up to the mark, in a department through which as 

 much trouble is as likely to arise as any other with which he has 

 to do. 



Perhaps there has been less real progress in kitchen-gardening 

 within the last twenty-five years than in fruit or plant culture. 

 Certain it is that what are now termed the " old-school men " were 

 not behind the generation which is following them in substantial 

 kitchen-gardening, while it would be difficult to say so much of them 

 in some other departments. I do not know whether my experience 

 corresponds with that of other gardeners who have passed a good 

 many young gardeners — so to speak — through their hands, but I find 

 the majority cj[uite as deficient in this department as in any other, 

 or even more so. There are plenty of worthy young nien who, v>ere 

 they called upon to grow a few genera of plants in pots, or to get up a 

 few thousand bedding plants, would do so with credit to themselves. 

 But call upon them to serve the kitchen, or subdivide a few acres of 

 a kitchen-garden into allotment for the proper proportion of the 

 different vegetables, and crop these with a proper selection, and in a 

 manner and at a time Avliich would secure a proper supply for the 

 season, and they would find themselves set fast. There cannot be a 

 greater mistake on the part of young men who, as soon as their two 

 or three years of apprenticeship is over, indulge a ceaseless hankering 

 to get into houses where forcing and plant-growing are carried on, 

 before they have made themselves conversant with the details of a 

 well-managed kitchen-garden. 



If these remarks are applicable to professional aspirants, they are in 

 another sense far more applicable to many an amateur who is now- 

 adays leaving the crowded city chambers to live in retirement, and in 

 the enjoyment of a garden in the country. While a vast deal is being 

 written for their instruction in fruit-culture and flower-culture, that 

 department which affects their comfort more constantly is not so 

 carefully brought before them. For these especially we hope to prove 

 useful and instructive in the series of articles we have undertaken to 

 write — a task which we are a little encouraged to go on with from the 

 fact that in the leading journal the comparative skill of gardeners in 

 vegetable culture north and south of the Tweed is being discussed some- 

 what warmly. Without the slightest wish to enter on the discussion 



