On the Remuneration of Gardeners. 141 



Art. XIII. On the Remuneration of Gardeners. By I. P. 

 Burnard, Eso. of Eden Grove, Holloway. 



Dear Sir, 



I have taken your first number cf the Gardener's Magazine, 

 with which, on the whole, I am tolerably pleased. I did in- 

 tend to have sent you, as I promised long ago, a plan and 

 specification of a master gardener's house, seed-room, and 

 office; such a one as appears to me suitable for gardeners, 

 from 60 to 100/. per annum, exclusive of board wages, &c, and 

 which might be varied for salaries above and below that sum: 

 but yesterday I had occasion to dine with a brother architect, 

 where one of the company related some things respecting 

 the way in which gardeners are remunerated, that quite 

 altered my determination ; and I now think that to begin by 

 giving a plan of a house, before first acertaining that the 

 intended occupant is able to make use of it, would be little 

 -better than an insult to his feelings. 



I respect all industrious men, and would have them all 

 placed in comfortable circumstances ; but I particularly re- 

 spect gardeners, because, as far as my experience goes, there 

 is no class of rural operatives, or masters, whose moral cha- 

 racter stands so high, and whose remuneration is so low. If 

 we take a carpenter, bricklayer, mason, or smith, and com- 

 pare the wages usually paid them through their apprentice- 

 ship, and while they are journeymen, with the wages of a 

 gardener during these states of progression; and compare 

 also their intellectual state, the difference between the two 

 classes is almost incredible. A bricklayer who cannot write, 

 and who has not the least knowledge of figures, or geometry, 

 receives from five to seven shillings a-day, as the common 

 price given by master builders. A journeyman gardener in 

 one of the first nurseries, who has gone through a course 

 of practical geometry and land surveying ; has a scientific know- 

 ledge of Botany, and has spent his days and his nights in 

 reading books connected with his profession, gets no more 

 than two shillings or two and sixpence a day. The Hor- 

 ticultural Society, it is true, very humanely give 14s. to 1 8s. per 

 week; but you may recollect, in the spring of 1824, that an 

 Irish lad working in Jenkins's nursery, was summoned before 

 the Mary-la-bonne police magistrates, to provide for an 

 illegitimate child, and being required to allow the mother 

 two or three shillings per week, assigned as a reason why he 

 could not afford it, that his wages were only 10s. per week! 

 The magistrate would not believe him ; he had but a small 

 plot of a garden, he said, but he paid the gardener who 

 did it up 4s. a day : this unfortunate lad, therefore, had the 



