OPERATIONS OF HORTICULTURAL DESIGN AND TASTE. 411 



6. Never do that in the open garden or in the hothouses, which can be 

 equally well done in the reserve ground or in the back sheds : potting and 

 shifting, for example. 



7. Never pass a weed or an insect without pulling it up or taking it off, 

 unless time forbid. Much might be done in this way towards keeping down 

 weeds, were it not for the formality of some gardeners, who seem to delight 

 in leaving weeds to accumulate till a regular weeding is required. 



8. In gathering a crop, take away the useless as well as the useful parts. 

 Never leave the haulm of potatoes on the ground where they have grown. 

 Take up all the cabbage tribe by the roots, unless sprouts or second crops 

 are wanted ; and carry every kind of waste to the reserve or the frame 

 ground, to rot as manure or mix with dung linings. 



9. Let no plant ripen seeds, unless these are wanted for some purpose useful 

 or ornamental, and remove all the parts of plants which are in a state of decay. 

 The seed-pods of plants should not be allowed even to swell, unless the 

 seeds are wanted for some purpose, because being the essential result of 

 every plant, they exhaust it more than any other part of its growth, and 

 necessarily always more or less weaken it for the following year. 



874. To these rules many others might be added, but it is not our wish 

 to render gardeners mere machines. One great object of the young gardener 

 ought to be to cultivate his faculty of seeing, so that in every garden he may 

 be able to detect what is worth imitating, and what ought to be avoided. 

 There is nothing tends more to this kind of cultivation than seeing the gar- 

 dens of our neighbours, in which we may often detect those faults which 

 exist in our own, but which, from having become familiar to us, we had not 

 been able to see in a similar light. Without a watchful and vigilant eye, 

 and habits of attention, observation, reflection, and decision, a gardener will 

 never be able to be a complete master of his profession. 



CHAPTER II. 



OPERATIONS OF HORTICULTURAL DESIGN AND TASTE. 



WE have introduced the title of this chapter, chiefly for the sake of show- 

 ing that we have not forgotten any part of our subject, and that the whole 

 of what would have been treated of here has already been given in the 

 Suburban Architect and Landscape Gardener. In order, therefore, to keep 

 this work within certain limits, we shall only here give an outline of what 

 would otherwise have been treated of in detail. 



875. Taking plans of gardens, garden-buildings, or of any part of them, 

 or of garden implements, or of modes of performing operations, ought to be 

 understood by every gardener who aspires to eminence in his profession, 

 and by every amateur who wishes to improve his own garden by what he 

 sees in those of others. 



876. Carrying plans into execution by transferring them from paper to 

 ground, or in whatever manner they require to be realised, is equally neces- 



