Book I. TRADESMEN-GARDENERS. 104 J 



with other botanic curators ; exchanges plants, seeds, and dried specimens, so as to keep 

 up or increase his own collection of living plants, and herbarium siccum. Abroad, for 

 want of sufficiently intelligent practical gardeners, they have what are called directors and 

 inspectors of botanic or other government gardens ; but no such office is requisite in this 

 country. 



7387. Royal gardener, court-gardener, or government-gardener ; Jardinier de la Cour, Fr. ; 

 Hoffgartner, Ger. ; and Giardiniere della Corte, Ital. This is the highest step, the sum- 

 mum bonum of garden-servitude. In foreign countries, the court-gardener wears an ap- 

 propriate livery, as did formerly the head gardeners of the principal nobility, as well as 

 the court-gardeners of this country. At present this remnant of feudal slavery is laid aside 

 in every grade of British garden-servitude. 



Sect. II. Tradesmen- Gardeners. 

 7583. Of tradesmen-gardeners, the first grade is the jobbing gardener, who makes and 

 mends gardens, and keeps them in repair by the month or year. Generally he uses his own 

 tools, in which he is distinguished from the serving gardener; and sometimes he supplies 

 plants from a small sale-garden of his own. 



7389. Contracting gardeners, or new-ground workmen, are jobbers on a larger scale. 

 They undertake extensive works, as forming plantations, pieces of water, roads, kitchen- 

 gardens, and even hot-houses, and other garden structures and buildings. Formerly, and 

 especially in Brown's time, this branch of trade was combined with that of the artist-gar- 

 dener, but now since the principle of the division of labor has been so much refined on, 

 they are generally separated. 



7390. Seed-groivers are as frequently farmers as gardeners ; their gardens or fields are 

 situated in warm districts, and they contract with seed-merchants to supply certain seeds 

 at certain rates, or to raise or grow seeds furnished to them by the seedsmen on stipulated 

 terms. The great test of excellence here is never to grow at the same time such seeds as 

 may hybridise the progeny by impregnation. 



7391. Seed-merchants, or seedsmen, deal in garden-seeds and other garden-productions; 

 in general they combine the business of nurserymen or florists, but sometimes confine 

 themselves entirely to dealing in seeds wholesale, or to a sort of agency between the seed- 

 growers and the nursery-seedsmen. 



7392. Herb-gardeners grow herbs, either the entire herb, as mint, or particular parts, 

 as the bulb of lilium, and the flower of the rose for medical purposes, or for distillation 

 or perfumery. 



7393. Physic-gardeners, herbalists, or simplicists, not only grow herbs for the pur- 

 poses of medicine, or perfumery, but collect wild plants for these purposes. For- 

 merly, when it was the fashion among medical men to use indigenous plants as drugs, 

 this was a more common and important branch of trade. They have commonly shops 

 appended to their gardens, or in towns, in which the herbs are preserved, and sold in a 

 dried state. 



7394. Collectors for gardens. The first variety of this species is the gipsy-gardeners, 

 who collect haws, acorns, and other berries and nuts, and sell them to the seedsmen ; the 

 next are those who collect pine and fir cones, alder-catkins, and other tree-seeds, which 

 require some time, and a process to separate the seeds from their covers, and clean them 

 before they can be sold ; and the highest variety are those gardeners who establish them- 

 selves in foreign countries, and there collect seeds and roots, and prepare dried specimens 

 of rare plants for sale. 



7395. Orchardists of the simplest kind are such as occupy grass-orchards, where the 

 produce is chiefly apples, pears, and plums, for cider or kitchen-use ; the next variety 

 occupy cultivated orchard-grounds where fruit-shrubs, as the gooseberry, currant, straw- 

 berry, &c. are grown between the fruit-trees ; and the highest variety occupy orchards 

 with walls and hot-houses, and produce the finer stove-fruits and forced articles. 



7396. Market-gardeners grow culinary vegetables and also fruits ; the simplest kind 

 are those who grow only the more common hardy articles for the kitchen, as cabbage, 

 pease, turnips, &c. ; a higher variety grow plants for propagation, as cauliflowers, ce- 

 lery, and artichoke-plants, and pot-herbs, as mint, thyme, &c. ; and the highest variety 

 possess hot-beds and hot-houses, and produce mushrooms, melons, pines, and other 

 forced articles and exotic fruits. They have often shops at their gardens, or in towns, 

 for the disposal of their produce ; and these, when fruit is chiefly dealt in, are called 

 fruit-shops ; where culinary vegetables are joined, green-grocery shops. Most com- 

 monly, however, the culinary vegetables are carried to market, and there disposed of to 

 such as retail them in shops or on stalls. Occasionally they are deposited for sale in the 

 hands of agents or brokers, and sometimes shops are supplied regularly on certain con- 

 ditions. 



7397. Florists are either market-florists who grow and force flowers for the market, and 

 of this subspecies are two varieties, those who grow only hardy flowers to be cut as nose- 



3 X 



