382 OPERATIONS OF GENERAL MANAGEMENT. 



allowed, are but small, compared with the amount of knowledge and 

 the steady attention which the exercise of his profession requires ; but 

 wages in this, as in every other case, depend on demand and supply, 

 and it would serve little purpose here to discuss the subject of 

 increasing the one or diminishing the other. This much it may be 

 useful to observe, that gardening, when studied scientifically, is a pro- 

 fession which tends to elevate the mind, and confer intellectual enjoy- 

 ments of a much more exalted character than mere money-making can 

 ever do, This, we think, is proved by the excellent moral character 

 of almost all professional gardeners, and by the high degree of in- 

 telligence and scientific knowledge which many of them acquire. 

 There are few persons, we believe, who have a more extensive personal 

 knowledge of British master-gardeners than we have, and we also know 

 a good many on the Continent ; and we must say that, as a body, we 

 have the very highest respect for them. They are almost all great 

 readers ; and in consequence of this, the intellectual and moral powers 

 of many of them have been developed in a manner that commands our 

 utmost veneration. There is scarcely a science or an art which some 

 master-gardener of our acquaintance has not of his own accord taken 

 up and studied from books, so as to obtain a respectable degree of 

 knowledge of it. We know a number who have taught themselves 

 several languages, and one of the best Hebrew scholars in Scotland, as 

 we are informed by a clergyman (a good judge), is a gardener, who 

 taught himself that language without the assistance of a master. We 

 know gardeners that excel in almost every department of mathematics 

 and geometry. Some are scientific meteorologists, naturalists in all 

 the departments, and a number are good draftsmen. Many Scotch 

 gardeners dip into metaphysics, and we have long known one whose 

 library contains all the best English works on the subject, including 

 those of Reid, Karnes, Stuart, Monboddo, Drummond, and many 

 others, besides translations. The development of so much talent among 

 gardeners is no doubt owing to the nature of the profession, which 

 excites thought; to the isolation of their dwellings and the necessity 

 of their staying at home in the evenings to look after hothouse fires, 

 and very much also to the kind indulgence of their masters, who, with 

 very few exceptions, allow them the use of whatever books they want 

 from their own libraries. Most employers also make presents of books 

 to their gardeners ; and some have established in their gardens, 

 libraries, with mathematical instruments, globes, and maps. Another 

 more recent yet great cause of the development of the minds of 

 gardeners is the practice, which has become general among them within 

 the last twenty years, of writing for the press. The ' Transactions of the 

 Horticultural Society of London,' and the 'Memoirs of the Caledonian 

 Society,' first called forth this talent, which, as the gardening books in 

 existence previously to the first edition of our ' Encyclopaedia of Gardening ' 

 will show, had been confined to very few persons. The grand stimulus 

 to writing, however, was given by the ' Gardener's Magazine,' a work 

 most liberally supported by the contributions of gardeners ; and how 

 generally this has called forth the talent of writing among both masters 

 and journeymen will appear by the abundance of communications 



