10 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



road to gardening ; and lie has made more practical gardeners, 

 amateur and professional, than all the other authors put 

 together. Later editions contain evidence that the means of 

 carrying out certain garden operations alter the practice in 

 the higher departments ; but still there is no labour necessary 

 to learn the ordinary duties of a gardener; and we have 

 abundance of reasons for our opinion that all men should be 

 gardeners. Gardening should be taught to boys as part of 

 their education. It will be found not only the most useful, 

 but the most safe branch of early education ; and whatever 

 may be the business to which a boy may be brought up, no 

 man can answer for his future situation; and, whether at 

 home or abroad, he may find a knowledge of gardening the 

 means of good employment if poor, and of endless gratification 

 if rich. It may be objected, that youth cannot be taught 

 without ample ground to work upon, and practically this is 

 true • but he who is made familiar with the seasons, the 

 terms, the system, and ordinary processes, by means of early 

 reading, rapidly learns the rest, the mere mechanical work ; 

 and there can be no question that, if there were the means of 

 teaching this also while a boy was at school, it would be of 

 the greatest benefit to the great mass of the people. 



Lea^ong the usefuhiess of garden knowledge out of the 

 question for a moment, let us look at gardening as a recreatioiL 

 Is there any one pursuit equally inviting? Does not the 

 produce reared in a home-garden eat sweeter than any we can 

 buy? Is not a nosegay plucked from our o^vn beds and 

 borders more valued than twenty times the quantity would 

 be derived from another source? Xo matter whether the 

 superiority be real or imaginary. Half our pleasures are ideal ; 

 and it is a happy feeling to esteem that which we have, more 

 than that which we have not. But there is one fact which 

 cannot be disputed: the vegetable that is fresh from the 

 garden is immeasurably superior to that which has been loaded 

 to market, and knocked about four-and-twenty or more hours 

 before use ; and although some suffer less than others, such 

 articles as peas, asparagus, sea-kale, spinach, Brussels-sprouts, 

 and aU soft cabbages, do suffer very materially every hour they 

 are kept between cutting or gathering and eating. Although, 

 therefore, it is a pardonable vanity to esteem our own growth 

 before any other in all cases, there is a luxury in getting 

 vegetables from the garden immediately before use, which 



