DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



53 



.be absurd to suppose that practical jrardeners 

 coming to this country would spend a year in your 

 .preparatory garden. How is it, Mr. Editor, that 

 our enterprising American young men never try 

 to become gardeners? The answer is quite sim- 

 ple — the wages tiiey would get when they had 

 acquired a knowledge of the profession, do not 

 come exactly up to their ideas of making money, 

 and any thing that your genuine Yankee don't 

 make money at, there is no use in Europeans try- 

 ing. The science of gardening is left to us Eu- 

 ropeans, and very often Americans, whom we 

 have taught the little they know, turn round and 

 be our critics. I think I can show that your la- 

 ment about the scarcity of srood gardeners among 

 us is imaginary. How is it that our leading com- 

 mercial gardeners never have any difficulty in get- 

 ting first class men? The reason is obvious — they 

 know how to appreciate talent. The rivalry of 

 trade compels them to employ the best gardeners, 

 which they do, and pay them in round numbers 

 just doulile the wages per year that your aristo- 

 cratic neighbors pay their men. Then take our 

 liberal and enterprising amateurs — Caleb Cope 

 and James Dundas of Piiiladeiphia, Mr. Cush- 

 ING and Col. Perkins of Boston, and Mr. Becar 

 of New York — have they any difficulty in procur- 

 ing first rate men? A visit to their places will 

 answer the question. These gentlemen pay the 

 very highest wages, and furnish tlieir gardeners 

 with every facility for displaying tiieir talents. 



Now, Mr. Editor, these gentlemen find as good 

 gardeners as they want, (all Europeans.) Their 

 science has been all acquired without passing 

 through your preparatory garden, and I see noth- 

 ing in the way of every employer in the country 

 to go and do likewise. To an intelligent gardener 

 a residence of two years in our climate gives him 

 a thorough knowledge of how to proceed. It 

 matters not where you place a scientific gardener 

 — whether at Cape Cod or the Cape of Good 

 Hope — whether in a moist climate or a dry one — 

 he will very soon learn how to combat the diffi- 

 culties that surround him, the theory being the 

 same. All he has to do is to shape his practice 

 to the climate. 



That the country is flooded with half gardeners 

 I will readily admit, but who has called them into 

 existence ? It is the parsimonious employers, 

 with whom the greatest qualification they can 

 produce is, that they will work cheap. My object 

 in writing this communication, was to show that 

 there are plenty of good gardeners in this coun- 

 try, and that the backward state of horticulture on 

 this continent is to be attributed more to the illib- 

 erality of the employers than to a want of scienti- 

 fic knowledge among the gardeners; and a visit to 

 the gentlemen's places that I have quoted proves 

 the truth of Sam Patch's assertion, " that some 

 things can be done as well as others." Your ap- 

 peal for help to the Mass. Horticultural Society, I 

 think will be made in vain — the funds of that in- 



stitution, although ample, seem to be jnst enough 

 to divide in prizes among its own members. Re- 

 spectfully yours, John Qui nn. Ida Farm, Troy^ 

 N. Y., June 19, 1850. 



Answer. Mr. John Quinn has our thanks for 

 the way he shows his colors and manages his guns, 

 though he comes rather sharply into action. 



We happen, fortunately, to know Mr. Quinn, 

 and have seen what he can do with his proper 

 weapons — in other words, that he is an excellent 

 gardener. The best answer, therefore, to the po- 

 sition he takes, that really good gardeners cannot 

 be found in this country, is to be drawn from the 

 man himself — for we believe he has had higher 

 wages for the past five years, by nearly one half, 

 than the majority of gardeners get in this coun- 

 try — and solely because he is such a gardener as 

 we would have our school send out. 



We quite agree with him in his complaint that 

 more than half the employers will not give a good 

 gardener fair wages.* But this is owing to two 

 causes — first, that the emplovers do not know 

 what a good gardener is, and second, that there 

 are hundreds of professedly good gardeners in 

 America, who are almost good-for-nothing — but 

 who offer to work cheap — and until there is some 

 way of determining the value of what is offered, 

 it is clear that those who are ignorant of it will 

 be taken in. Hence, again, the utility of our pro- 

 posed school. No doubt an able, clever man will 

 quickly adapt himself to the climate — but as we 

 happen to have had such in our own employment, 

 and have lost many valuable plants while they were 

 busy in this kind of adaptation, we think it would 

 be better to have them ac(juire this at public cost. 



The reason why commercial establishments, nur- 

 series and the like, get the best gardeners, is that 

 they send out to like establishments abroad and 

 receive men of certified character. Few private 

 individuals can do this, and have to take garden- 

 ers on their own showing. The school for garden- 

 ers would therefore benefit employers by sending 

 out men with reliable testimonials, and would 

 gradually raise the wages of competent garden- 

 ers, by forcing those who only call themselves 

 such, to fall back into the ranks of day laborers. 

 Ed. 



Common Names of Wiid Plants. — I know 

 not how the Horticulturist would flourish without 

 the monthly spice of your untiring correspondent 

 Jeffreys. It is true, he sometimes seasons our 

 dishes with assafcetida, and sometimes with rose- 

 water, but then there is an air of honesty, ear- 

 nestness, and sometimes of enthusaism about him, 

 that every body likes. Besides, he seems to be 

 an universal savant, for neither yourself nor your 

 scores of correspondents can start a subject on 



*The difference between being a porter in a store at 35 or ?40 

 per month, and having to pay the increased expenses of life in-a 

 city, and having a ranch less sum in the country, with perhaps 

 a house and garden free, must be taken into account. It i> 

 not what a man gets, but what he can save, that makes tik 

 profit. 



