October 8, 1868. ] 



JOUBNAL OF HOETICULTURB AND COTTAGE GABDENER. 



2G5 



I am afraid ho pays all hia respect away, and is earning none 

 iot himself. And then, too, hia heart is not in his work, and I 

 never yet met with a man who eucoeedod well in doinf; things 

 . he did not like. Did you ever notice with what a slow, un- 

 oaring-what-time-he-gets-here walk, he oomea in a morning, 

 and the joyful, springing, telegraph speed with which ho takes 

 his departure in the evening :• I assure you a workman does 

 not care much for his employment when he is over-anxious to 

 leave it — when he is all day counting the minutes until it 

 shall cease, and relief come. And during the last half hour 

 this new man of ours must have been at least half a dozen 

 times to look at the stable clock. I suppose he has a wife at 

 home, a harder master than the one he has here, so he is dread- 

 fully uneasy lest he should be late. I should not wonder if he 

 has not all his tools put away, everything ready for leaving a 

 minute before the time, even the key turned in the lock." 



" What is the matter ? Frank, yon do not know what it is to 

 work all day in a garden, or you could understand why a man 

 should be ready to go home at night. And if they have rules 

 laid down, so many hours for so much, I do not see you havo 

 any right to expect they should stay longer." 



" Certainly not, nor should they stay less. So many hours' 

 labour for so many shillings. But what for the lost five minutes 

 here and there, the idle chattering with pretty housemaids 

 at kitchen doors, the packing-up of vegetables for home con- 

 sumption ? All this unnecessarily, I think, in the paid-for 

 time. So much a-month for service not rendered. In my 

 father's time a man worked two hours longer for 3s. than he 

 does now for -U. ; but then a garden was thought a luxury, 

 now we call it a necessity. Why the fact is, it is becoming every 

 year more and more of a luxury. This little place costs us Ss. 

 a-week and four glasses of ale — a large slice out of our weekly 

 pudding. I begin to think it is beyond our means. This sum 

 would go a long way in the purchase of flowers and fruit. I 

 would not care if we could meet with a gar^lener with a bit of 

 conscience about him, one who could look at both sides of the 

 question, and ask himself now and then how he would like to 

 pay a man wages for doing an|indifferent amount of work in an 

 indifferent manner." 



" W'e have had ill-luck with our gardeners, Frank, but others 

 may have met with men more suited to their requirements." 



"Then they have been favoured; yet I know scores of 

 masters who feel just the same as I do, and yet they cannot, 

 or dare not speak out. They are afraid of the very men they 

 employ, or, at least, they are afraid that the gardener should 

 all at once take his departure, and they be left in a fix, the fires 

 go out, the fruit spoil, and everything be wrong. So they put 

 up with little evils, not seeing the end in the beginning, and, 

 perhaps, hoping that everything will come right at last." 



"Then," replied Mrs. Butler, " I think masters are greatly 

 to blame ; they should speak out fully and clearly what they 

 mean. If it is too much trouble to do so, or they are afraid, 

 no wonder affairs go wrong. I suppose if a gardener left as 

 early as he could after being spoken to, and you know he could 

 not without notice, it would be quite possible to get another." 



" Yes, but clever gardeners are scarce. I often think that 

 half the men who set up for that trade know little about their 

 work ; they are hke Sedgly, who when a lady asked him in what 

 sort of soil she must repot her Vallota purpurea, replied, ' Oh ! 

 give it a bit of every kind you have. I always do.' There are 

 plenty of men who can plant Cabbages, and earth-up Potatoes, 

 but few you could wisely send to give water in your conser- 

 vatory, or work in your flower garden. Our neighbour Grant 

 was iU last winter ; he does his own gardening, it is pleasure to 

 do so. His wife, fearing it would grieve him to see the untidy 

 state of his borders, engaged a luan to do up the place. Not 

 knowing where to apply to she walked through the village, and 

 chose one who had a large sign over the door — So-and-so ' Land- 

 scape Gardener, jobbing work promptly attended to.' When 

 poor Grant was able to go about again in April, and looked 

 round his garden, he found his Roses, for which he had paid 

 no small sum, cut down within a few inches of the soil ; bud and 

 graft had been nothing to the landscape gardener. I suppose 

 he never heard of such a thing, at any rate Grant has no Roses 

 to send up to the church this thanksgiving season." 



" I wonder Mrs. Grant did not look after him, seeing he was 

 a strange man." 



" She would consider that he knew what he was doing. And 

 yon know our Peas came up in a strange manner, long dead 

 blanks in the rows, then small patches with the Peas crushing 

 and crowding each other. I counted forty-seven in one patch 

 that Nelly's cap would cover. And your brother Wilson 



assures me that he has this season paid £'.) 17«. (id. to a man 

 for attending to a vegetable garden he had the folly to rent 

 last autumn, and all its yield has been a few Radishes, one 

 dish of dark green tough Lettuce, one dish of Peas not worth 

 much, for they dropped upon the jjlato like pellets ; a few 

 Cauliflowers, among whose snowy arches the Lepidoptera had 

 lodged ample surety that its species should not soon become 

 extinct ; and Potatoes, rather under than over the size of a 

 walnut. He thinks the market the best garden ; not without 

 cause." 



" But did he say how many Vegetable Marrows they had ? " 



" He never eats Vegetable Marrows." 



" But his wife and children do, and ho would be wise to cul- 

 tivate a taste for them, they are as wholesome as any vegetable 

 grown, and not costly, at least to the grower." 



" I greatly dislike them, never could eat them." 



" As a rule, gentlemen do. I think it is because they are BO 

 easy to prepare, and almost any gardener may manage to grow 

 them." 



"We never had a man who could or would grow them, or if 

 he did he found a better market than his master's table. That 

 reminds me of something which took place before I was mar- 

 ried. Coming home late, or rather early in the morning, I met 

 a man striding through the wood with a bas'iiet on his arm. 

 Fancying it might be game, I stopped the man roughly, and 

 would know what his basket contained. ' Only Strawberries, 

 Master,' was his quiet reply, as though he had guessed my 

 thoughts. And then he lifted up the cover, and some folds of 

 soft white paper, and displayed the tempting fruit. Dear me ! 

 how fragrant it was, and how beautiful its appearance in the 

 white moonlight of that cold March morning. ' Are they for 

 sale ? ' I asked. ' No, they are sold.' ' All right, my good fellow,' 

 I said, and hurried on home. Before going to bed I took the 

 keys of the houses and went round. My father was very proud 

 of his Vines, the earliest and latest and best of Grapes were 

 ever to be found on his table — at least, he spared no expense 

 to gain this end, it was his hobby ; he was very fond, too, of 

 forced Strawberries. I climbed the ladder and flashed the light 

 of the lamp upon the long shelf in the forcing house on which 

 the Strawberry-pots stood, no need to do it twice, the beat and 

 ripest were gone." 



" What did you do, Frank ? " 



" Put away the ladder, locked all up, and held my peace, as 

 they say. But that is not all. Next morning my father told 

 me he was greatly disappointed our Strawberries were not ripe, 

 as it was his birthday, but he had just received some from 

 Walker, a fruiterer in the market. A little bill of £5 came 

 along with the fruit. There was not a doubt they were my 

 father's Strawberries I had met walking through the wood to 

 come back again next morning. So he bought his own over 

 again at a dear rate, as many a master may do, and know it 

 not, for I cannot fancy this an isolated case." 



" I should hope it is, or nearly so. Is your list of grievances 

 at an end ? I shall despair of ever meeting with a gardener to 

 your satisfaction." 



" Get one who knows his work, and can do it, and be prond 

 of it. One who is not always blaming the seasons for every 

 failure, who legins his work as a pleasant duty, and would 

 rather stay half an hour longer than allow his own credit or 

 his master's interest to suffer. 1 am sure his own interest 

 would be secured by so doing. No one willingly parts with a 

 gardener who reaches even half way up to the requirements of 

 his position." 



" Then we will try ours a little longer, as he more than half 

 meets our desires." 



I will next detail "Gardeners' Troubles." — Maud. 



GESNERA EXONIENSIS. 



You conld not have said better respecting the Gesnera than 

 you have done, except your mentioning that the foliage is dark 

 green ; it really is brilliant plush. We send you by this post a 

 leaf, as the drawing on which your notice was founded is cal- 

 culated to mislead in that respect. In it neither the flowers 

 nor foliage, as represented, are anything like so brilliant as the 

 plants, which are now really splendid. They fairly light np 

 the whole of our conservatory, and every visitor that calls 

 pauses to admire them, and not one person out of a hundred 

 that see it, and having the means to grow this Gesnera, but 

 orders the plant. — Lccombe, Pince, & Co. 



[Messrs. Lucombe, Pince, & Co. do not exaggerate in their 



