JOURNAL OF RURAL ART AND RURAL TASTE. 



Stinrrirnu nmm Iritisli jijurtirulturt. 



"\T>r7HEN a man goes into a country without understanding its language — merely as a 

 "■^ traveller—be is likely to comprehend little of the real character of that country ; 

 when he settles in it, and persists in not understanding its language, manners, or customs 

 — and stubbornly adheres to his own, there is little probability of his ever being a 

 contented or successful citizen. In such a country as this, its very spirit of liberty 

 and progress, its freedom from old prejudices, and the boundless life and energy that 

 make the pulses of its true citizens — either native or adopted — beat with health and 

 exultation, only serve to vex and chafe that alien in a strange land, who vainly tries 

 to live in the new world, with all his old-world prejudices and customs. 



We are led into this train of reflection by being constantly reminded, as we are in 

 our various journeyings through the country, of the heavy impediment existing — the 

 lion lying in the path of our progress in hoi'ticulture, all over the country, in the cir- 

 cumstance that our practical gardening is almost entirely in the hands of foreign gar- 

 deners. The statistics of the gardening class, if carefully collected, would, we imagine, 

 show that not three per cent of all the working gardeners in the United States, are 

 either native or naturalised citizens. They are, for the most part, natives of Ireland, 

 with a few Scotchmen, and a still smaller proportion of English and Germans. 



We suppose we have had as much to do, for the last sixteen or eighteen years, with 

 the employment of gardeners, as almost any person in America, and we never remem- 

 ber an instance of an American offering himself as a professional gardener. Our own 

 rural workmen confine themselves wholly to the farm, knowing nothing, or next to 

 nothing, of the more refined a^nd careful operations of the garden. We may, there- 

 fore, thank foreigners for nearly all the gardening skill that we have in the country, 

 and we are by no means inclined to underrate the value of their labors. Among them 

 there are, as we well know, many most excellent men, who deserve the highest com- 

 mendations for skill, taste, and adaptation — though, on the other hand, there are a 



June 1, 1852. 



No. VI. 



