446 SCIENCE OF GARDENING. Part II. 



2336. Economical arrangements. The next thing is to fix on the hours of labor and 

 of rest, the amount of wages, and regulations as to board, lodging, tc. The hours of 

 labor ought to be at least one hour per day less than those for common laborers (who 

 require no mind), in order to allow time for studying the science of the art to be 

 practised. The amount of fines should also be fixed on at the same time : as for absence 

 at the hours of going to labor ; for defects in the performance of duty of various sorts, 

 as putting by a tool without cleaning it, being found without a knife or apron, or not 

 knowing the name of a plant, &c. A set of general maxims and rules of conduct 

 should be drawn up by the master (for which the succeeding section will afford some 

 hints), and printed, and the amount of fine specified at the end of each rule. The fines 

 may either be applied to some general purpose, or returned by equal distribution quarterly. 



2337. The system of keeping accounts may next be determined on, and this, in gar- 

 dening, is very simple. The books necessary are, the time-book, the cash-book, and the 

 forest or jrfantation book. 



2338. The time-book is a large folio volume, ruled so as to read across both pages, 

 with columns titled, as in the specimen in the next page. In this the master inserts the 

 name of every hand ; and the foreman of each department inserts the time in days, or 

 proportions of a day, which each person under his care has been at work, and the par- 

 ticular work he or she has been engaged in. At the end of each week the master sums 

 up the time from the preceding Saturday or Monday, to the Friday or Saturday inclu- 

 sive ; the sum due or to be advanced to each man is put in one column, and when the 

 man receives it he writes the word received in the column before it, and signs his name 

 as a receipt in the succeeding column. The time-book, therefore, will show what every 

 man has been engaged in during every hour in the year for which he has been paid, 

 and it will also contain receipts for every sum, however trifling, which has been paid by 

 the gardener for garden-labor. In short, it would be difficult to contrive a book more 

 satisfactory for both master and servant than the time-book, as it prevents, as far as can 

 well be done, the latter from deceiving either himself or his employer, and remains an 

 authentic indisputable record of work done, and of vouchers for money paid during the 

 whole period of the head gardener's services. In laying out grounds in a distant part 

 of the country, where upwards of two hundred men were employed under one foreman, 

 we have had their time, employment, and payments recorded, and receipts taken, in this 

 way, and found it an effectual bar to every thing doubtful or disagreeable. 



2339. The next book is the cash-book, (see next page,) which may be a common quarto or octavo book, 

 with horizontal lines running across both pages ; Dr. and Cr. columns for cash on the left-hand page ; and 

 the right-hand page left blank for signatures. The cash-book may be finally balanced once a-year, or 

 oftener, and, if requisite, the sums received from the woods and plantations can be taken out and added 

 together, to show the amount of profit by that department. In small gardens, this is the only book that 

 gardeners in general require to keep ; but our business here is to show what belongs to first-rate gardens. 



2340. The forest-book, (see next page,) where that department is not an entirely separate concern, may 

 be simply what, in Italian book-keeping, is called a waste-book. The size may be quarto, with a column 

 for cash to each page, and the intention of the book is to serve as a record for all bargains for the sale of 

 timber, fuel, bark, or the felling of timber, grubbing, planting, &c. When the money is received for any 

 such sale, it is entered in the cash-book ; as paid for work done, it is entered in the time-book. In very 

 extensive concerns it may be necessary to open accounts for particular woods or plantations, as well as for 

 individuals who become purchasers of timber, bark, fuel, charcoal, &c. ; in such cases it is hardly 

 necessary to observe, that recourse is to be had to the common ledger of merchants. 



2341. Substitutes for books. When a man acting as gardener, forester, or foreman over 

 a number of laborers, can neither read, nor write, he may keep an account of their time, 

 money, and a journal of work done, in various ways, and among others as follows : — 



For men's time he may take seven small flower-pots for the seven days of the week and set them in order 

 on a shelf. In each pot put as many bits of sticks as there are men employed, and a different kind of 

 wood for each man ; and then cut each stick with four edges or sides. To prevent mistakes as to the in- 

 dividual men the different woods represent, apply the names of the woods to the men, and this from 

 first hiring them, (" John Davies, I shall call you Lime-tree, and here is your stick," &c.) and always after- 

 wards when speaking to them. To note their time on the sticks, let a corner notch denote one entire day ; 

 a cut on one face, one quarter; on two faces, or half round the stick, two quarters ; or three sides, four 

 quarters; and on four sides, or a single notch and one side, five quarters, and so on. When pay night 

 comes, take one kind of wood out of each of the pots, reckon the notches and cuts, and adding them 

 together, call the man — " Lime-tree, your time is five days," &c. 



To keep a cash-account, have three bags for gold, silver, and copper, and different-colored stones or 

 shells, &c. in each, to represent sovereigns, shillings, &c. Then have three pots for payments, answering 

 to the Cr. L s. d. columns in a cash-account ; the bags answering to the Dr. columns. Then, for every 

 real transaction make a counter-transaction between the bags and pots, &c. The rest is obvious. 



To keep a ledger, for each man as represented by a sort of wood, or each object as represented by a bit of 

 itself, &c. keep bags and pots, and effect counter-transactions, &c. 



To keep a journal of operations, for each man devote seven pots for a week, or twenty-eight for a month, 

 &c. Then suppose you wish to note what Lime-tree is doing on Monday, put in his pot a bit of some- 

 thing taken from the place where he is at work, or the things he is at work with ; thus, if he is at work with 

 tan or gravel, a little of each in a paper ; pruning, a twig ; mowing, a little grass ; watering, a bit of 

 iris or other water-plant ; or on a journey, a leaf of wayfaring-tree or a little road-grit ; digging, a leaf or 

 twig from some noted tree in that compartment, &c. &c. These visible memoranda will, to a man whose 

 memory is unencumbered by written signs, readily recall operations, and enable him after months to 

 recount, in the order in which it was executed, the work done by himself or the men under his care. As 

 farm-bailiffs are often very illiterate, it might also be tried with them, and would at all events serve to 

 occupy and amuse some descriptions of masters and mistresses. 



