iSyi.] SCIENCE OF HORTICULTURE. 391 



contempt by his fellows. The horticulturist who can descant on the 

 physiology and functions of plants has acquired no mean knowledge ; 

 and if, in addition, he can produce fine fruits, vegetables, and flowers, 

 his acquirements are surely all the more onerous and worthy. 



The practical man who will not willingly sit at the feet of any scien- 

 tific Gamaliel, and learn anything that may enable him the more 

 successfully to carry out his garden practice, is not deserving of sym- 

 pathy, and has denied himself one source of improvement. The man 

 whose immediate sphere is the more purely and exclusively scientific, 

 has no business to pour contempt on any man who has to carry on the 

 real, the profitable, and substantial battle of the garden, simply because 

 he may fall short of the highest standard of technical knowledge and 

 ])lirases. And to select, as has been recently done, some miserable ex- 

 amples with which the writers have come in contact, and hold them up to 

 public gaze as representatives of gardeners, either morally or intellect- 

 ually, is unfair and ungrateful towards a body of men who are at 

 least as honourable, intelligent, and respectable as any in receipt of 

 the same remuneration. We say this much fearlessly, and they who 

 are prepared to deny it must surely know little of the position of the 

 generality of gardeners. Not only must they be respectable themselves, 

 but every one connected with them must be so, or they will soon come 

 to grief. And any man who can successfully carry on a garden estab- 

 lishment of first, second, and third rate importance, must of necessity be 

 a man of varied information and intelligence ; and it is no disgrace to 

 gardeners, as a body, that in this respect they are mostly self-taught. 



Away, then, for ever, with the distrust, or rather the cause of it, 

 which exists between two sections of fellow-labourers in the same 

 field. Let all who are disreputable in both sections be treated as they 

 deserve, but let neither hold up any mere pretender or unworthy 

 members of either fraternity as samples of the mass. There has been 

 far too much of this, and the result has been a vast amount of jeal- 

 ousy and evil, which it will take a long time to eradicate completely. 

 When men of science have overtaken and fulfilled all the high and 

 useful functions which yet lie in their way, practical men will thank 

 them heartily for their labours ; meantime, they may safely intrust 

 other matters which do not lie within their sphere to the owners of 

 gardens and those who serve them. When practical horticulturists 

 have more spare time and work of a less laborious character than falls 

 to their lot at present, perhaps they might be able to ignore all other 

 assistance ; meantime, it behoves and becomes both parties to be on 

 better terms. 



