436 THE GARDENER. [Oct. 



the old home and the dearly loved well-known fields to the last in 

 hopes of better times, which for them never came. Large capitalists 

 will not now embark in farming ventures, as was formerly the case. 

 Whatever charges may be brought against the landlord, one is the 

 destruction of the small tenant-farmer and grazier in England. This 

 destruction is a great national loss bitterly felt now, but unless it be 

 repaired it will be still more severely felt in time to come. By driving 

 the small cottars from the English villages, the national interest in 

 earth-culture was weakened. Sons and daughters of cottar-tenants, 

 instead of following the avocations of land-culture to which they were 

 born, were obliged to turn to other avocations. Fortunately for them 

 the expansibility of English manufactures made it easy for them to 

 follow in other grooves ; and now that bad seasons and foreign competi- 

 tion has lowered the value of farm-produce, and so of the producing 

 agent land itself, there is no one to bear the burden but comparatively 

 large farmers and the landlord. Large tenant-farm.ers do not, as a rale, 

 cling on to the " old home " and the dear old village. They simply 

 made a business of farming, and do not wait for ruin to overtake them. 

 In many cases they promptly realised their capital ere the depression 

 materially affected them, and left the landlord to do the best he could 

 with his land. Now that the depression is more forcibly felt, the land 

 is resigned to its owners still more freely, and if perchance a farm is 

 let, it is only possible at a large reduction of rent. 



Some may say this is not a question for th=e ' Gardener ; ' but of all 

 men gardeners are, or should be, most interested in land and its value. 

 The modern idea of a garden with many is to make it pay. The thing 

 in times past was not usual ; but at present those who depend on rents 

 cannot afford to spend so much on gardening as a luxury as was for- 

 merly the case. Owners of gardens have a perfect right to sell garden- 

 produce, just as they have to sell shorthorns from the home farm or 

 yearlings from the paddock. A time is coming when skilful cultural 

 knowledge on the part of a gardener must be supplemented by ability 

 to sell his produce, or a portion of it, in the best market; and that man 

 who can do both the one and the other best will be considered the 

 best gardener. All this may lead to a good end ; for if gardens can be 

 made profitable as well as interesting or beautiful, so much the better 

 for all gardeners. 



Every now and then we hear how lovely a water-plant is Aponogeton 

 distachyon, with its fragrant forked spikes of white bracts and haw- 

 thorn-like perfume. If imported tubers be now obtained — or well-rested 

 ones of home growth be now planted in pans or tubs of good sound 

 loam, this to be first surfaced with an inch of sand, and afterwards 

 with three or four inches of water — they will soon commence growth 

 in a greenhouse temperature, and will flower freely from Christmas 

 until April or May following. I find it does best in rather a shady 



