248 THE NEW GARDENING 



real calamity if in his passing there went also the spirit 

 of devotion to duty which animates him, and the love of 

 plants for their own sake which has been his saving 

 grace. 



The old gardener has often been the tyrant of the 

 garden. There has been no one to teach him suavity 

 and tact. He has not had the benefit of gentle nurture. 

 He has plunged straight from school into an absorbing 

 and overmastering profession, which has filled his un- 

 trained mind to overflowing. He has taken the plants 

 which he grows into his inmost life, and made them his 

 own. He has raised them with his own hands, and they 

 are as his children. He has all a rude, uneducated 

 parent's doting and indiscriminating love and admiration 

 for his offspring, and as swift a resentment for any re- 

 flection or criticism upon it. 



Of course he offends. He gets a reputation for bearish- 

 ness. The old labourer in the village, the old shepherd, 

 the old groom, may become the pet of the family, the 

 old gardener never. The lady and her children love to 

 visit the old folk of the hamlet. They like to go from 

 cottage to cottage on the estate. But they do not care 

 to visit the gardener's lodge. 



As a class, gardeners get the reputation of being 

 boorish. They have few social graces, much less the 

 deference that means more to little natures than sterling 

 worth of character. The old gardener is rarely a persona 

 grata with his employers because he unthinkingly snubs 

 them, chills them, and makes them feel that they are 

 interlopers in their own gardens. There is no denying 

 that he actually does this. He may not do it deliberately, 

 but he does it. He grumbles at flowers being cut, at 

 work being " interfered " with. A lady who fondly 

 supposes that she is helping in the garden by taking a 



