CRITIQUE ON THE JULY HORTICULTURIST. 



oflBces are attached, and they are comfortably nestled amid the deep shadow of fine trees, 

 and rejoice in plats of shrubbery and flowers. 



It is wonderful to compare the taste of the laboring English with that of the same class 

 of people in our own country. The one you can scarcelj' keep from cultivating his flowers; 

 and if he, himself, has no time to attend to it, his wife and daughters will. The other 

 you can neither drive nor coax into the slightest attempt of the kind. I have a quiet lit- 

 tle cottage at one end of my principal farm — the tenement itself humble in appearance — 

 scarce worth an hundred dollars. I put into it an American " hired man," who chopped 

 wood in winter, worked on the farm in summer, and was a capital hand at all sorts of 

 rough labor. I had some fine young forest trees about the place, a comfortable garden 

 stored with currant bushes, roses, and such like little affairs, as would make a laborer's 

 home cheerful — for I like to see every bod^' about me in the enjoyment of such little plea- 

 sant things, not costing much, and looking pretty. When he removed into it, I told him 

 how comfortable and convenient these little appendages would be about the place, yet ob- 

 served the incredulous and staring look he gave me by wa}^ of reply. To cut the matter 

 short, during the year the man occupied the place, his " young barbarians" hacked into, 

 girdled, and spoiled several of my trees; the currant bushes were mostly stripped of their 

 branches to carry into the " shanty" to pick the fruit from, while the cow came in to browse 

 the remainder. The pig was let loose into the wretched, weedy garden, after the potato 

 and cabbage patches were cleared, and he rooted up the roses and hollyhocks, and the 

 place was sadly in ruins. When I remonstrated against such vile destruction, the answer 

 was, that " they had no use for such knick-knacks, and did'nt see the need of them!" 

 This man " walked Spanish," of course, at the end of his 3'ear, and was succeeded by a 

 quiet English laborer in like capacity, bating the " wood chopping" — Englishmen usually 

 knowing little of such labor. And now came a change truly. "Oh, what destruction 

 has been made here!" would he often exclaim. " I must fix these little things all up 

 again. A nice bit of fruit we'll get from these currants, and properly trimmed they'll grow 

 some good shoots again; and, sir, may I go into your /lowse-garden and take up a few 

 side- roots from the poeonys and roses, and sum'mut of other things that can be spared, 

 and put in here? for I hate to see a place naked, and without something to rest one's eye 

 on of a Sunday, and to give my wife a flower-pot now and then." " To be sure you can," 

 was the reply, "and the more of them the better." All this was done in the course of the 

 spring, and no time lost either — for it was accomplished out of the regular work hours; 

 and in less than a twelvemonth the place was turned into a little paradise, where I often 

 drop in and take a quiet chat as I pass, and learn from the laborer and his good-mannered 

 wife, much of the humble and rural life of England. 



This, to be sure, is in a sphere below the class for which the article under note is intended. 

 But it is a part of the system, and the subject. The parallel will hardly, perhaps, hold 

 good with the higher classes in America, but the difference in the taste of the two people is 

 surprising. This difference is partly incidental to the newness of our land, but much 

 more owing to a tvant of taste — that's the flat reason. Here, Ave go blundering and daun- 

 dering along, looking to the " main chance," and to the main chance only, as if to gather 

 together dollars and estates, with which to bespoil our children who are to come after us 

 — and in which latter purpose we usually succeed to admiration — were the only object 

 worth striving for in life! On the whole, how^ever, we are improving — but not half fast 

 enough. 



an for Industrial Universities. — It is quite apparent that Professor TtJRNER is no 

 fogy" in his notions of practical education. lie is a man of sound sense and accu- 



