CHAPTER XX 



THE NEW GARDENER 



FOR the new gardening the new gardener. 



The old professional gardener has long been a stock 

 butt for the jester, the caricaturist and the satirist. Like 

 the stage policeman, he is brought on the scene merely 

 to arouse mirth. He is an uncouth figure. He talks a 

 singular jargon. He helps himself to the best of every- 

 thing in the garden. He has fat love affairs with portly 

 housekeepers. He is bullying and extortionate. He 

 muddles up everything he touches. 



To those who know the professional gardener as he 

 really is the stock gardener of the stage and press is an 

 unfamiliar figure. They have never seen or heard of 

 anything like him in the gardens that they visit and the 

 flower shows which they attend. They suspect that he 

 is based on the " jobbing gardener " of the towns, who 

 has rarely had a gardener's training, and who earns pre- 

 carious half-crowns in " doing up " the forecourts and 

 backyards of boarding-houses in shabby streets where 

 third-rate writers and artists woo the editors of cheap 

 " comic " papers with tiresome buffoonery. 



The real gardener of the old school is a man of many 

 idiosyncrasies, but he is a totally different being from 

 the jobbing gardener of the towns. He is baffling, per- 

 plexing, often very trying, but he has an individuality 

 all his own. He is passing, and a new type is taking his 



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