On the Professional Education of Gardeners. 167 



Art. II. On the Professional Education of Gardeners. By Gkant 

 TiioRBURN, Esq., New York. 



[Continued from page 122.] 



In order that a professional man sliould excel as such, every other 

 acquirement must be kept subservient to tliat of his profession. No 

 branch of knowledge should be pursued to any extent, that, either 

 of itself, or by the habits of thinking to which it gives rise, tends to 

 divert the mind from the main object of pursuit. Something, it is 

 true, is due to relaxation in every species of acquirement ; but judi- 

 cious relaxation only serves to whet the appetite for the vigorous 

 pursuit of the main object. By the professional education of garden- 

 ers, we mean, that direction of their faculties by which they will best 

 acquire the science and manual operations of gardening ; and we 

 shall suppose the young man to be instructed, to have had no other 

 scholastic education than some knowledge of arithmetic, and the first 

 problems of geometry and land surveying. The sort of garden 

 which ought to be the scene of the days of apprenticeship should, if 

 it can be so foreseen and arranged, be that v;hich the learner is ulti- 

 mately intended to possess or manage. As the great majority of 

 young men who learn this art, are intended for serving as gardeners to 

 private families, a private garden, where every department is respec- 

 tably conducted, is the best to begin with. Here, or in any other 

 garden in which he may be placed, he will have to learn the names 

 of things, their use in gardening, how to use them in the best man- 

 ner singly, and how to combine their use in performing the different 

 operations of gardening. 



The grand foundation of every kind of acquirement, is the culti- 

 vation of the faculties of attention and memory ; unless we pay at- 

 tention to what is addressed to us, whether by the eye or the ear, it 

 is impossible we can remember, because the sight or sound has made 

 no impression on the memory, and without memory there can be no 

 knowledge. 



Many pass through hfe without seeing or hearing any thing but 

 what immediately concerns their avocations ; it is a common thing for 

 a person to walk out and return, without being able to describe, or 

 even mention anything he has seen, or to read a newspaper without 

 being able to tell what he has read, further than to give some vague 

 idea of the subject ; all this is the result of neglecting to rouse and 

 exert the faculty of attention, or of limiting our attention to one sin- 

 gle object, or class of objects. One of the tlrst things, therefore, that 

 a young man should do, is, to cultivate the faculty of attention, which 

 he may every hour of the day, by first looking at an object, and then 

 shutting his eyes, and trying whether he recollects its magnitude, 

 form, color, &:c. ; whether he would know it when he saw it again, 

 and by what mark or marks he would know or describe it. When 



