THE 



GARDENER'S MAGAZINE, 



FEBRUARY, 1838. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. The State of Gardening in the South of Ireland, as compared 

 with England and Scot/and. By John Jeffery, Nurseryman, 

 Mitchelstown. 



To describe the 'state of gardening in the south of Ireland, 

 properly, would take up much room, as different places in each 

 county would require to be mentioned, and a comparison drawn 

 between them. At present, I shall only say what state Ireland 

 is in, so far as I have observed it, with a few remarks on the 

 different classes, which I shall divide into four. In the first 

 class, I shall include the nobles, prelates, principal gentry, 

 and wealthy merchants possessed of country seats. With re- 

 gard to walled gardens and glass, this class, in the south of 

 Ireland, is equal to England or Scodand, except in this, that 

 very few have trees on the outside of their garden walls. Most 

 of them have good orchards of apples for cider, and many have 

 also tolerable flower-gardens and shrubberies. In the park, or 

 what ought to be the arboretum, they are very deficient ; and 

 their shrubberies are not well kept : neat short grass, and highly 

 kept walks, are scarcely to be met with in this quarter. I do not 

 consider that gardening, &c., with this class, is on the advance, 

 as there seem to be full as many gardens on the decline as there 

 are building or repairing. The principal cause, in my opinion, 

 is, that so few of the first-rate families live in Ireland. Gentle- 

 men of this class pay their gardeners full as well as either the 

 English or Scotch, their wages varying from 30/. to 60/. per 

 annum, with board, &c. In fact, they mostly have either Eng- 

 lish or Scotch gardeners, or Irishmen who have been partly 

 educated in England. Another cause is, that the seats of the 

 first class are so few, and so far distant from each other, that 

 neither the gardener nor his employer is sharpened by the state 

 of his neighbours. The question asked of the gardener is. Can 

 he keep the garden at less expense, or can he manage with a 

 man or boy less ? He scarcely ever is asked, Can he keep the 

 place better, if he had better means ? or, What would it cost to 

 Vol. XIV. — No. 95. f 



