■Reading nccessari/ and advantageous to Gardencis. 461 



Art. VI. Reading necessary and advantageous to Gardeners. 

 By Mr. Housman. 



Sir, 

 The science of gardening, or that part of natural history 

 which treats on the uses, propagation, and culture of plants, 

 is in our day become so fashionable a pursuit among the 

 nobility and gentry, and so very many provincial horticultural 

 societies have been formed and are springing up in various 

 parts of the kingdom, from whose Transactions^ and the many 

 publications on botany, horticulture, chemistry, &c., they are 

 acquiring a knowledge of raising and maturing most kinds of 

 fruits and vegetables, that, although very many of my brother 

 gardeners are most ready to give out their anathemas on all 

 reading and writing gardeners and to depreciate the value of 

 books, I believe the day is near at hand when something more 

 will be required of the practical gardener than a knowledge 

 of sowing, planting, pruning, and mowing, wrapping himself 

 up in a blue apron, and carrying a crooked knife, &c. The 

 Honourable President of the London Horticultural Society 

 says he had a gardener who was a simple day-labourer, and 

 could not read a black letter, and that the said gardener 

 could grow the pine in a high solar heat, on a stage near the 

 glass, in the manner of a green-house plant. However true 

 this may be, I presume the above-mentioned simple labourer 

 would have grown them no worse had he been possessed of 

 the knowledge of the Council of the Horticultural Society: 

 and I beg of my dear brothers not to entertain any fear for 

 the safety of the temple ; we shall never pull it over our heads 

 by reading the two publications which every gardener should 

 have, and an inclination to read them, I mean the Encyclopedia 

 of Gardening and the Gardener's Magazine. Nor let us be 

 dismayed at the knowledge ladies and gentlemen may acquire 

 in our profession ; for the more they are enamoured with our 

 goddess, the surer will the building stand : and let it not be 

 said, that, while others are improving their minds through 

 various praiseworthy mechanics' institutions, we alone are idle ; 

 we have our garden libraries, and, when we are no more, the 

 names of a Mackay, a Bannerman, and a Shephard will long be 

 esteemed. The mechanic studies the arts and manufactures ; 

 we study nature, and learn to look through nature up to 

 nature's God. No unhealthful experiments nor tedious en- 

 quiries are to be made, but pleasures accompany our pursuits, 

 and crown us with health and satisfaction. It is true that we 

 learn the routine work of a garden by a long series of practice, 

 and no doubt many have grown good crops without studying 



