504 



JOTJKNAL OF EORTICULTTJRE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ December 19, 18G6. 



twecB the rcws of Potatoes by the aid of fcwr^, and in the open 

 quarters, to show the superiority of the fcnner in size and pro^c- 

 tjveness. 



The prizes aTrarded were — the gold medal of the Society to Mr. 

 Ingram, for the best collection of frnit and vegetables produced in the 

 garden of a Sovereign ; a similar medal to the Horticultural Society 

 of Copeoiiagen, for the best collection of fruit grown by any botanic 

 or horticultural society ; a like award to the Pruit Growers' Asso- 

 ciation of Nova Scotia, for the best and most complete representative 

 collection of fruit and vegetables from any of the colonies : the first 

 Banisian gold medal to the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of 

 jHfadras for the best and most complete representative collection from 

 snj of liie Presidencies of India ; the first gold Knightian medal to 

 3Sr. Solomon, as the exhibitor paining the greatest number of first-class 

 certificates ; the second gold Knightian to Mr. Ford, for the greatest 

 namber of second-class certificates ; the second gold Baoksian to Mr. 

 "Whiting, for the greatest number of third-class certificates ; and the 

 first gold BanksiMi to Mr. Solomon, for the greatest number of moj-ks. 



WHO SHOULD GATHER THE GAEDEN 

 PRODUCE ? 



I HOPE you ■will allow me space in yonr Journal for a few 

 •words on the above question. I happen to have the manage- 

 ment of one of those gardens where the domestic servants can- 

 not be prevented from going through it, as there is a direct 

 footpath from the house to the stables ; consequently the coach- 

 man or groom, or, in fact, any one going from the house to the 

 stables has no other -n-ay than through the garden. This is not 

 what I have to complain of, nor of such trifling matters as the 

 kitchen maid running into the garden to pick a little Parsley 

 for garnishing, or a sprig cf Thyme, i-c. ; but in the summer 

 when the fruit is ripe it is not a very pleasant sight to see the 

 kitchen maid in the morning gathering a dish of Strawberries 

 for breakfast, again about noon the cook after Currants or 

 Strawberries for a tart, and at four o'clock in the afternoon the 

 parlour maid is after a few for dessert. If you take notice you 

 will see that they mostly cat two and put one in the dish, and 

 another fact is they never eat the worst — no, but always the 

 Tery best, and consequently the worst goes to the master's 

 table ! and another evil is, they tread on and spoil more than 

 they take away. 



Now, these things are very annoying and very degrading to 

 any gardener, especially when he attends at the house every 

 morning for orders, and is always on the premises during the 

 remainder of the day, yet it was the manner in which I was 

 treated last summer, and I have no doubt it is the case with 

 many others. 



Of course I was annoyed, but I said nothing, but thought 

 the more, and the conclusion I came to was that perhaps it 

 would work off best by my not saying anything, or, perhaps, 

 some day an opportunity would offer itself for me to bring the 

 question forward. I hope you will be kind enoug'n to give us 

 your opinion, or a few lines on this important subject, for I 

 am sure there are others besides myself treated in the same 

 way, and very often the master is entirely ignorant of such 

 proceedings. — CoscOKnii. 



[You are quite right in thinking the matter important. There 

 can be no satisfaction when matters are managed as you re- 

 present. Now, first, we think it is a good plan, where the gar- 

 den is near the house, to have some small bit of ground out- 

 side the garden walls or boundary, in which a Httle of all the 

 herbs likely to be wanted are grown, and to which, not as a 

 general practice, but in an emergency, the kitchen maid may 

 repaii' for any little thing she may want, and which she may 

 have forgotten. Such an arrangement is often very satis- 

 factory to all parties concerned, and it saves a garden man 

 making a journey to the house in working-hours. As a general 

 rule, however, it is more satisfactory when aU orders for the 

 garden are given at one and a definite time. There are plenty 

 of employers who are not over-liberal as to labour-power, and 

 yet cause time to be uselessly wasted by not settling at a 

 regular time what they will have for dicner, and the chief of 

 the kitchen in consequence is often obliged to give extra trouble, 

 and cause extra journeys, which it would better suit all parties 

 lo avoid. 



Secondly. Scarcely any contrivance could be worse than having 

 the direct thoroughfare from the house to the stables through 

 ihe garden. Direct temptation should not be too glaringlv put 

 in the way of the most honest people. Efforts should be made 

 to have another way to the stables. Do the carriages and horses 

 also come through the garden to the house ? if not, why can- 

 not these persons who go from one place to another go the same 



way as the carriages do ? If there is only one road, and that 

 through the garden, it would be well to divide the garden from 

 it by a fence on each side of the road, even if it were a stout 

 Privet hedge, with the requisite number of doors or gates in it. 



Thirdly. As to cooks, parlour maids, &c., gathering fruit at 

 any time and every time they think proper, that is so thoroughly 

 out of the question, that we" would advise you to take the first 

 suitable opportunity of representing the case to your employer, 

 and calmly but clearly showing that tmder such regulations it 

 would be impossible for his table to be satisfactorily replenished. 

 No one but yotirself should gather fruit for the table, or some 

 one with clean hands and a quick eye on whom you can rely. 

 Such a system is just as subversive cf £.11 order and consistent 

 regulation as if you were to go and do as you hked in the cook's 

 larder, the butler's pantiy, or the housekeeper's store-room. 



Fourthly. "We wiU go a step farther, and say, that although 

 the proprietor and his family have a perfect right to what is 

 their own, and may exercise that right in the case of fruit of 

 aU kinds, yet it will be prudent to exercise that right but little, 

 and never without giving the gardener due notice. The gar- 

 dener's aim is to send the best to table ; but if there are several 

 to pick and choose where they like, there will never be any 

 best to find ; besides, when so many pick at their pleasure there 

 is a great temptation to garden men to imitate their example. 

 When fruit is missed — "I saw Mr. C. and Miss M. there, " will 

 often come in as a nice excuse ; and if even the gardener sus- 

 pects the contrary, he is obliged to take the explanation, as he 

 has no personal evidence on the subject. "Where there are 

 children, who may delight in picking for themselves, it should 

 only be in the places that the gardener appoints, and from which 

 he has taken the best. On the whole, then, if a gardener is to 

 be responsible, no other servant must be allowed to interfere 

 with the produce of the garden, and when several men or boys 

 are employed the proprietors will act prudently in waiving their 

 right to do so.] 



GLKiXIXOS FROM ROCK AND FIELD 

 TOWARDS ROME— No. 9. 



"Flokzn-ce, the garden of Italy; Italy, the garden of the 

 world.'' How often do we read those hues, httle imagining 

 how true they are — how in very deed, throughout every month 

 of the year, Florence is a laud of Sowers ! They spring up 

 spontaneously on every side, requiring no fostering hand to 

 bring them into beauty — by the dusty wayside, or amidst the 

 fresh green of the springing corn — beneath the grey OUves, or 

 crowning the high bank — ttum where you may, and it seems 

 as though Flora had that instant poured out her brightest 

 treasures to gladden your sight. 



Ten years had passed away since I last had hunted for wild 

 flowers in the fair valley of the .\mo. Ten years since, in the 

 gardens of the Pitti palace, I had gathered brilliant Anemones 

 and Tulips, the good-natured gardeners of the still more good- 

 natured royal owners offering me help when the flowers were 

 beyond my reach ; but then I was accompanied by a dear friend 

 of the Bourbon race, who now leaves Florence whenever the 

 king enters it, and speaks of Napoleon III. as " Ce Monsieur." 



Ten years ago, and I had stood in the Cascine, the Hyde 

 Park of Florence, with hands filled with Primroses and Tiolets, 

 listening to an Austrian band playing the national airs of 

 Tuscany ; and the whole city seemed asleep, botmd by some 

 invisible spell, while the waters of the Amo flowed along tmder 

 the goldsmiths' shops on the Ponte Vecchio with a lazy sooth- 

 ing sound, as if sleep and repose were all in all to Italy. And 

 now? We will go to the gardens cf the Pitti. The dark walls 

 of the massively built palace are the same ; the huge blocks of 

 stone chamfered rovmd the edges, the faces of the blocks hewn 

 and chiselled into irreg-olar surfaces, look as defiantly as of 

 old, and the garden is the same, and yet not the same. 



The Anemones are over, but there are wild flowers still — 

 wild, yet guarded here and there and everywhere by Italian 

 soldiers. On a grassy slope, looking down on which are beau- 

 tiful white statues, I see some blossoms of Hawkweed, such as 

 I have never before seen growing wild. I make a charge up 

 the bank in the very eye of the sentinel. A prohibition in 

 Itahan is given. '■ Ncn parlato Itaiiano,'' I cry with as much 

 truth as vehemence. " C'est defendu,'' calls out the sentinel. 

 " Je Euis etrangere," say I. Then fcUows a long French 

 speech, at which I recklessly fling at the poor soldier a whole 

 tirade of Enghsh, explaining the why 1 kept gathering the 

 flowers, smiling and thanking in French between whiles, as 

 though we were on the most amicable understanding in the 



