1040 STATISTICS OF GARDENING. PAKT IV. 



CHAP. I. 

 Of the different Conditions of Men engaged in the Practice or Pursuit of Gardening. 



7377. Gardeners may be arranged as operators or serving gardeners ; dealers in gar- 

 dening or garden-tradesmen ; counsellors, professors, or artists ; and patrons. 



SECT. I. Of Operators, or Serving Gardeners. 



7378. The garden-laborer is the lowest grade in the scale of serving gardeners. He 

 is occasionally employed to perform the common labors of gardening, as trenching, 

 digging, hoeing, weeding, c. Men for the more heavy, and women for the lighter em- 

 ployments. Garden-laborers are not supposed to have received any professional instruction, 

 farther than what they may have obtained by voluntary or casual observation. In all 

 gardens where three or four professional hands are constantly employed, some laborers are 

 required at extraordinary seasons. 



7379. Apprentice. Youths intended for serving, or tradesmen-gardeners, are generally 

 articled or placed under master or tradesmen gardeners, for a given period, on terms of 

 mutual benefit : the master contracting to supply instruction, and generally food and 

 lodging, or a weekly sum as an equivalent ; and the parents of the apprentice granting 

 the services of the latter during his apprenticeship as their part of the contract. The term 

 agreed on is generally three years ; or more if the youth is under sixteen years of age 

 but whatever may be the period, by the laws as to apprentices it must not extend beyond 

 that at which the youth attains the age of manhood. No one can ever expect to attain to 

 the rank either of master-gardener or tradesman, who has not served an apprenticeship to 

 the one or the other. In general it is preferable to apprentice youths to master-gardeners, 

 as there the labor is less than in tradesmen's gardens, and the opportunities of instruction 

 generally much greater. 



7380. Journeyman. The period of apprenticeship being finished, that of journeyman 

 commences, and continues, or ought to continue till the man is at least twenty-five years 

 of age. During this period, he ought not to remain above one year in any one situation ; 

 thus, supposing he has completed his apprenticeship in a private garden at the age of 

 twenty-one, and that his ultimate object is to become a head-gardener, he ought first to 

 engage himself a year in a public botanic garden ; the next year in a public nursery ; that 

 following, he should again enter a private garden, and continue making yearly changes in 

 the most eminent of this class of gardens, till he meets with a situation as head-gardener. 

 The course to be followed by an apprentice intended for a tradesman-gardener is obvious ; 

 having finished his period in a private garden, let him pass through a botanic and nursery- 

 garden, and then continue in the most eminent of the class of public or tradesmen's gar- 

 dens, to which he is destined. 



7381. Foreman (before-man, or first man). In extensive gardens where a number of 

 hands are employed, they are commonly grouped or arranged in divisions, and one of the 

 journeymen of longest standing employed as foreman or sub-master to the rest. When- 

 ever three or more journeymen are employed, there is commonly a foreman, who has a 

 certain extent of authority at all times, but especially in the absence of the master. This 

 confers a certain degree of rank for the time being, but none afterwards. 



7382. Master-gardener. A journeyman has attained the situation of master-gar- 

 dener, when he is appointed to the management of a garden, even if he has no laborer, 

 apprentice, or journeyman under him ; but he has not attained to the rank of master- 

 gardener till having been a year in such situation. Afterwards should he be obliged to 

 work as journeyman, he still retains the rank and title of master-gardener but not of 

 head-gardener. 



7383. A head gardener, or upper gardener, is a master who has apprentices or journey- 

 men employed under him. Out of place and working as a journeyman, he retains the 

 rank and title of master-gardener, but not of head-gardener. 



7384. Nursery foreman. This is an important situation, the foreman being entrusted 

 with the numbered and priced catalogues of the articles dealt in ; authorised to make 

 sales ; entrusted to keep an account of men's time, &c. (see Time-Book, 2338.) ; and in 

 consequence it entitles the holder to the rank of head-gardener while so engaged, and to 

 that of master-gardener ever afterwards ; the same may be said of foremen to public botanic 

 gardens, and royal or national gardens. 



7385. A travelling gardener is one sent out as gardener, or collector of plants, along 

 with scientific expeditions ; he is generally chosen from a botanic garden ; and his busi- 

 ness is to collect gardening productions of every kind, and to mark the soil, aspect, climate, 

 &c. to which they have been habituated. 



7386. Botanic curator. This is the highest situation to which a serving gardener can 

 attain next to that of being the royal or government gardener. He superintends the cul- 

 ture and management of a public botanic garden j maintains an extensive correspondence 



