198 



JOUENAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ September 12, 1867. 



grow. Why, at Thornton they have turned away a good gar- 

 dener for giving a few cut flowers to his mother." 



" That was not fair ; for to give a few flowers is a privilege 

 every gardener has possessed ever since I knew anything about 

 the matter, and my father and grandfather were gardeners." 



" But everything is altered since that time. They were 

 Utopian days in which our grandfathers dug ; days of quiet, 

 easy gardening, with a long winter, in which they did little or 

 nothing— indeed, fancied they could do nothing. Imagine us 

 now at our time, and with our requirements, taking oft all the 

 lights from every pit and frame, and putting them under cover 

 for the winter. Why, our winters are almost as busy as their 

 summers used to be." 



" Yes ; I wonder, Mark, what they would think if they could 

 see the Cucumbers and snowy white Cauliflowers we have at 

 Christmas, and the long bright sticks of Rhubarb, red as a 

 Cherry, they used to think so much of if they could have by 

 May-day." 



" Now, Mary, you would think it wrong of a gardener to 

 give away Cucumbers and vegetables without consent; and yet 

 the masters argue they are no more his — that is, that flowers 

 are no more the gardener's than fruit or vegetables ; and legally 

 they are not his, he neither buys the seed nor rents the ground 

 on which they grow." 



" And yet custom or courtesy have ever acknowledged the 

 gardener's right to cut flowers when and where he chose, pre- 

 supposing he knew best. I am sure I should not stay a month 

 it the right was withheld me. And your comparison is not 

 good, for fruit and vegetables are food, and have a certain value ; 

 But flowers fade by to-morrow, and are useless." 



"And perhaps you do not know that flowers have come to 

 have a certain value — that is, a market value. Large hampers 

 of flowers, packed in moss or damp grass, are sent by rail 

 weekly from London to the great towns in the north, and find 

 there a ready sale. So that after all they have a certain value 

 of their own." 



" But the flowers you speak of are grown for sale by nursery- 

 men or people who have tmall gardens of their own ; and that 

 has nothing to do with a gardener having the right to cut a few 

 flowers for his friends." 



" You do it whenever you like." 



" Yes, but I agreed for it, and it was given me most liberally. 

 And if all gardeners would look upon their engagements as a 

 mere matter of business, and put sentiment, fondness for 

 flowers, and such like nonsense out of their heads, they would 

 not make so many mistakes." 



" I thiijk, Mark, you met on east wind as you came." 



" No, I did not; but I got put out greatly. Y'ou know we 

 have had a busy time of it this season with the new borders 

 making (and perhaps the houses are not in as good order as 

 they .should be) ; and master coming in this afternoon says, 

 ' The plants over yonder at Sykes's are in much better condition 

 than ours. Y'ou could not find thrips running the mad gam- 

 bols they do on these Azaleas.' I was near to saying their 

 place is less than ours, and they keep a man more, but I did 

 not, for I hate grumbling; so I said, 'He is a tobacco manu- 

 facturer, and one pound of tobacco would go farther in his 

 houses than three in ours.' ' You could still smoke,' says he, 

 'your bills get paid.' 'Well, I should have done so,' I said 

 sharply, for I felt cross; 'but I was afraid of spoiling the 

 young stuff in the house at present.' ' Oh, indeed ! ' he re- 

 plied, ' why did you not wash them down ? At the Five 

 Poplars they never smoke the year round, but wash them down 

 with Gishurst and a painter's brush.' ' Wash them !' I said ; 

 then, for fear of a larger dose than I could swallow, said it was 

 tea-time, and came home. Now, Mary, if he had understood 

 anything about gardening, had any practical knowledge of 

 plant-culture, with such houses as his are, and so full as he 

 will have tliem (he will find out the ruinous practice of over- 

 crowding some day to his loss), lie would never have said any- 

 thing half so absurd as to wath thiips c if the leaves of Azaleas 

 with a painter's brush. Why, the little black things would run 

 up among the bristles and come down at their leisure in search 

 of better quarters ; and then the time it would take ! I wonder 

 if he would hire the village school, or the old women fiom the 

 Union. No, I shall never come to that; I will be a rolling 

 Btone first, changing ever. It is bad enough to have Camellias 

 to wash three or four times in the year with soap, making one's 

 hands feel as it they had been out charing, and yet they must 

 he done, or they .are not fit to be seen ; but then the leaves are 

 large and smooth, and a sponge over does wonders." 



" But he would never think of your doing it, Mark." 



" No, but he would expect your husband to consider himsell 

 responsible, and I might just as well do it as stand over some 

 one, wasting my time while they did it, and probably have my 

 patience sorely tried in at the bargain. Now the idea of setting 

 such a lad as Smith to wash away thrips from Azaleas, ten to 

 one ho would knock off half the buds, and never know the mis- 

 chief he had done. And Kobert is not much better. Why the 

 day we went to Liverpool, I told him to gather some Peas for 

 the hall, and to do it carefully, so as not to spoil the whole lot 

 by putting in those too old. Well, he pulled more empty newly- 

 formed pods than full ones, and his peck of Peas when shelled 

 did not fill a breakfast cup. I dare say he was watching the 

 thrushes and the ripening Cherries, and wondering which 

 would have the best of it." 



" Well, I do not know what to say, Mark, but it seems to me 

 there might be worse things to do, or to put up with, than 

 washing away thrips from greenhouse plants, and a man with a 

 young family should try to get a bit of moss on his roUing 

 stone." 



" Well, well, Mary, I must go or Miss Claude will miss her 

 bouquet tor to-night's ball, and if there are any thrips dancing 

 about they will show off splendidly on her satin dress." 



"Well, you know best, Walter, at least you think you do," 

 said Mrs. Stapleton, of The Elms ; " it is a foolish custom or 

 rule, or whatever you may choose to name it. I do not approve 

 of it ; would not submit to it. You pay hundreds a-year to 

 your gardeners, you grow the rarest, most costly flowers, your 

 hothouses are the boast of the county, you do all this not for 

 your own pleasure, or the gratification of your family. Do not 

 make any mistake about it, I pray you. it is just for your gar- 

 deners, they hold the keys, and bow one in and out, and say this 

 must be cut, and the other not cut. Yet your wife may not 

 dare to pluck a few buds even." 



" Ah ! you do well to say buds, for tliat last Camellia you 

 took had three fine green buds on, and two years' growth of 

 wood, and the wood growing in a place where it was much 

 wanted to make a fine specimen plant." 



" I suppose it will grow again." 



" Yes, but never as it would have done if you had left on 

 that strong healthj* young shoot. Butler was finely put out." 



" Indeed ! I heard him say he would rather I had cut down 

 the entire plant ; but it is always the same, whatevei I take is 

 something I should not have done. There are thousands ol 

 flowers growing out on the borders before the windows, burn- 

 ing in the simshine, or dying in the rain, and if I dare to 

 gather any of them, I am spoiling the appearance of the beds, 

 lessening the depth of colour where it should be deepest. I 

 tell you what, Walter, the Curate's wife down in the village 

 with her plot of garden she can manage herself, and do what 

 she wills wiih, even to the cutting away of a few green buds, is 

 richer than your wife." 



" I hope she is more judicious, Margaret, for the flower you 

 are wearing in your hair cost guineas, and this is our first year 

 of blooming it. And I half fancy you took it yourself, though 

 you are too timid to pluck a Verbena. I am quite sure Bittler 

 would not have cut it, and he allows no one to do anything in 

 the Orchid-house without his peimissiou. It was to have been 

 sent to the show next week." 



" I am sorry I took it, then." 



" Y'ou are like most women, hard to please. Y'ou have fresh 

 flowers brought in for you every day in the year. They are on 

 your breakfast-table, on your dinner-table, and in your draw- 

 ing-room. They are in the hall and in the lobby windows. 

 They come to you without cost or trouble in any way, and yet 

 you would have more." 



" I would have the pleasure of gathering for myself, of doing 

 as I like with what is or ought to be my own. I caunot, I 

 never could, understand why a gardener should cut flowers and 

 his master not. It was the same at my father's, it is the same 

 go where you will." 



" It is very easy to understand if you look at it from a gar- 

 dener's point of view. These plants are in his care, the result 

 of his labour, proof of his skill, and he must naturally lose 

 all heart, all interest in their growth, if they are mutilated at 

 the fancy of another. I never yet met with a gardener worth 

 a rush, who would submit willingly to the indiscreet clipping, 

 even ol a lady." 



" It may be a rule, it is still a bad one, and were I a gentle- 

 man employing gardeners I would put it at defiance." 



" Y'ou would soon find out that you were doing more injury 

 to yourself and your house than to any one else. For if the 



