10 GARDENING FOR PROFIT. 



while they attend their own mercantile duties as before. 

 They are usually gentlemen of horticultural tendencies, 

 read all the magazines and books on the subject, and from 

 the knowledge thus obtained, plume themselves with the 

 conceit that they are able to guide the machine. 



Many hundreds from our large cities delude themselves 

 in this way every season, in different departments of hor- 

 ticulture ; perhaps more in the culture of fruits than of 

 vegetables. I have no doubt that thousands of acres are 

 annually planted, that in three years afterwards are 'aban- 

 doned, and the golden dreams of these sanguine gentle- 

 men forever dissipated. Although the workers of the 

 soil will not, as a class, compare in intelligence with the 

 mercantile men of the cities, it is a mistake to suppose 

 that this want of education or intelligence is much of a 

 drawback, when it comes to cultivating strawberries or 

 cabbages. True, the untutored mind does not so readily 

 comprehend theoretical or scientific knowledge, but for 

 that very reason it becomes more thoroughly practical, 

 and I must say that, as far as my experience has gone, 

 (without being thought for a moment to derrogate against 

 the utility of a true scientific knowledge in all matters 

 pertaining to the soil), that any common laborer, with or- 

 dinary sagacity, and twelve months' practical working in 

 a garden, would have a far better chance of success, other 

 things being equal, than another without the practice, 

 even if he had all the writings, from Liebig's down, at his 

 fingers' ends. Not that a life long practice is absolutely 

 necessary to success, for I can see, from where I write, the 

 homes at least of half a dozen men, all now well to do in 

 the world, not one of whom had any knowledge of gar- 



