July ;8, 1863. ] 



JOUKNAL OF HOETICULTUKE XNB COTTAGE GABDENEE. 



63 



Then, again, we would advise our young friends, in their 

 working houi's and in their studying hours, to aim at being 

 methodical. The man who has no method in Ms work 

 will in general have no method in study, and will, most 

 likely, not do great things in either. We feai- there is a 

 growing tendency to want of method. Our boasted im- 

 provements have lessened the necessity for close uninter- 

 rupted attention, and hence there is frequently doing and 

 undoing, undoing and doing, and never finished. The motto 

 might well be inscribed on every garden tool-house — " In 

 doing work, avoid making work." One man will go aijd do 

 a job, and you iviU never see where he has been. Another 

 wiU make such a mess that the first job was nothing to the 

 jobs which he made. You wiU never lose sight of his track 

 from the rubbish and the messes he leaves behind him. 

 The thus making work is ever apt to keep people in a 

 muddle. In most gardens there is quite enough of work for 

 even method to reach. There is a man you tell to go and 

 do what is necessary to a series of flower-beds that he knows 

 all about as well as you do. He thinks a moment, for he is 

 a man of method ; and away he goes, taking hoe, rake, tyes, 

 stakes, broom, and basket or ban-ow with him. Tou tell 

 another man to do a similar job, and off he stai'ts with his 

 hoe. He has been chaffed for thoughtlessness, and, ere 

 long, he sneaks to the tool-house for a rake chiefly for the 

 edges of the beds. By-and-by the jom-ney is repeated for 

 tyes and little sticks, and ultimately there is a double 

 jom-ney for a broom and a ban'ow, to the no small wearing 

 of shoe leather. Suppose that these men continue in these 

 marked habits, would we not expect to witness a very- 

 different result, when each had a sepai-ate charge \vith a 

 similar amount of labour power under biin ? The want of 

 method, more than the want of knowledge, is often the 

 cause of want of success. 



And the same rule will hold true as to success in study. 

 A dip at this, and an hour at that, will never enable a yovith 

 to master any one subject. Change is pleasant ; but make 

 it all change, and how is it possible to attain concentration 

 of thought and of energy ? Some have recommended devoting 

 the hours of the evening, or at least the different evenings 

 of the week, to different branches of study. We know very 

 little, but judging ft-om our own experience, we should 

 imagine this plan to be all a mistake, so far as the common 

 average of working men is considered. We woidd recom- 

 mend, instead, to take only one chief subject of study in 

 hand at one time, be it grammar, arithmetic, mathematics, 

 systematic or phytological botany, geology, &c., or what- 

 ever it was, and stick tenaciously to it waiil it was so far 

 mastered that we could count and report om- progi-ess ; and 

 in the meantime take up seriously with no other subject, 

 except such as would give cheerful relaxation — as music, 

 the newspaper, or even a little of light reading, as a good 

 novel. The mind cannot always be at fuU stretch. It, as 

 well as the body, demands change and relaxation. This 

 relaxation will sooth and refresh, just as a stimulant acts 

 on jaded physical energ-y. In both cases the stimulus 

 must be under control, or it wiU become the master instead 

 of the sei-vant. Taken in moderation, it will relieve and 

 brace the mind for further energy. Taken in excess, the 

 mind becomes unfitted for sustained and concentrated 

 thought. We have known young men allowing themselves 

 half an hour of relaxation, and devoting each evening of the 

 week to a different pm-pose ; but by the time the regulai- 

 night came round, they had pretty weU forgotten what they 

 had acquii-ed, and on the whole made little progi-ess in com- 

 pai-ison with those who devoted a month or two at a time 

 chiefly to one subject. 



But for our correspondent being a Latin scholai-, we sliould 

 say that, next to a good methodical workman, the young 

 gardener shoidd be well up in reading, writing, and arith- 

 metic. _ A good education is a great advantage. The want 

 of it in these days need be no ban-ier to the youth of 

 resolute determination. Some of our ablest, most intelli- 

 gent gai-deners can look back to the time, when, as they 

 handled the fii-e-shovel, they could scarcely speU then- way 

 through a simple sentence. What they have done others 

 may do. The educated yoiith wdl have the advantage if 

 he do not think so much of his learning as to make hhn 

 careless and inattentive. In a previous article we hinted 

 that education, with a little capital or without it, might do 



better than learning to be a gentleman's gardener ; but the 

 field offers something like a prize to the comparatively un- 

 educated youth of humble means, who resolves to leai-n and 

 triumph over all difficidties. With the ability to read, write, 

 and keep accounts, he possesses the keys to unlock every 

 avenue of knowledge. As to reading, it is next to im- 

 possible to speak well, or with clearness and elegance, with- 

 out being able to read well. Young men should, therefore, 

 accustom themselves to read out with the voice, and not 

 merely with the eye. This is apt to be forgotten in retired 

 country places ; but if it cannot be done in lodgings it ought 

 to be done out of doors. There is great benefit every way 

 in thus giving free utterance to the voice. Just as in 

 singing or reciting soul-stin-ing poetry, not only the matter 

 but the manner and the idiom of the author whose sentences 

 we read out become more impressed on the memory ; and 

 thus reading well is not only a chief means for enabling as 

 to speak well, but the best ijreparatoi-y study for enabling 

 us to write oon-ectly. 



Eeading must ever be the chief means of increased infor- 

 mation to the young gardener. Writing down what he 

 knows is one of the best agents by which he can pliunb the 

 depths or the shallowness of his information, and is often 

 the only agent he can use for making his knowledge in- 

 fluential upon others. That Avi-iting is the best that can be 

 read as easUy as print. All fine flourishes of penmanship 

 should, therefore, be generally avoided, unless for some 

 particular word of importance. No capital letters should be 

 used, except for the word beginning the sentence. The 

 shorter the sentences are, the more pleasant and per- 

 spicuous the reading. All conti-actions should be avoided, 

 as " I've " for " I have," " sd" for " should," &c. Old fi-iends 

 may do such things with each other; young gardeners 

 should aim at ftdlness, plainness, and distinctness. Be 

 anxious to state clearly what you have to say, and finish 

 when you have done. I need not speak of the importance 

 of spelling con-ectly ; the best aid to thLs will be reading 

 good authors slowly, with an occasional tui-n-up of the 

 dictionary. A pithy, well-written letter is a great recom- 

 mendation whei-e a servant has to con-espond frequently 

 with an employer. If he aims at elegance and correctness, 

 and is at all young, he should study the grammars with 

 their respective keys, of either Lenney, or Cobbett, and 

 Lindley Murray, and then he can scarcely fall into the 

 common en-ors of joining plm-al substantives with sin- 

 gular verbs, &c. We know men that wi-ite very elegantly, 

 that never got a lesson in grammar except what they gave 

 themselves, and now they can smile at the crudeness of the 

 composition of even a Queen's speech to her parliament. No 

 man will write easily, however, who is ever thinking on 

 gi-ammatical points. We are told that other men write very 

 correctly who never learned a bit of grammar in their lives. 

 They read the best authors carefully, and leai-ned to write 

 with equal clearness and perspicuity, thefr chief guides 

 being clear expression of ideas, natm-al sequence of these 

 ideas, and a pleasing impression and clear comprehension 

 by the ear when the matter was read aloud. A writer who 

 cannot make his subject clear to himself must appear in 

 cloudland to ever/body else. With nothing but the ear and 

 common sense to guide him, along -ivith the helps above 

 alluded to, an intelligent man will make few en-ors in com- 

 position, though he knows little or nothing of the i-ules of 

 gi-ammar. A careful study of the best authors wUl after all 

 be the best teacher in this respect. 



In speaking of the best authors, I would not include some 

 of the most popnlaa- authors of the day, who, by high- 

 sounding rodomontade and abundance of low slang, have 

 done so much to injure the fine terse old Saxon English, 

 and led young people to believe that the uncouth, the high- 

 sounding, the long words of many syllables boiTowed from 

 foreign languages, and sentences ever so involved ajad lon^ 

 ai-e some of the essentials of elegance. It would be well to 

 recollect that as " brevity is the soul of wit," so strength 

 and elegance may ever be joined with the simplest words 

 and the shortest sentences. Instead of going to such un- 

 couth slang for models, it would be wiser to consult, in 

 this respect as to style, the Book of Books, the pages of 

 the " Spectator," the volumes of the " Gardener's Magazine," 

 especially after the great Loudon was united to Mrs. Lou- 

 don, for seeing how massive strength and vigour may be 



