and Funds of the Horticultural Society. 539 



" I should almost doubt whether you do not come within the meaning of 

 the bankrupt laws. As you are a Society growing cabbages and strawberries 

 for profit, perhaps the selling them amongst yourselves may make a differ- 

 ence. The point is worth considering, particularly as the law is proverbially 

 uncertain, and the Society has the reputation of being poor 



" One of the reasons I have heard advanced for this superabundance of 

 cultivation is, for the purpose, not only of producing cabbages, but for the 

 simultaneous production of young gardeners. What has been the result? 

 I could vouch the experience of many of your subscribers (some of high 

 rank), that never were such servants sent out of the most trumpery nursery. 

 And how could it be otherwise ? Poets are born, not made, we all know — 

 but is a gardener? What experience can they acquire at Chiswick? Who 

 is there at this moment to teach them ? Does Mr. Sabine profess to be a 

 gardener ? does he attend at all to the details ? Does Mr. Lindley wield 

 the hoe? or, if either of them did, are they practical gardeners? Who else 

 then is there ? The late Mr. Turner was a printer. Who, then, but 

 Mr. Monro is the Coryphaeus of the whole set ? And it is this person to 

 whom the management of the education, practical and theoretical, of the 

 whole establishment is confided — for there is no other person in office — 

 he alone teaches the young idea of the whole class how to shoot. You, of 

 course, never deign to " prune the vine:" you, if report says truly, think 

 it better each time you come up, to be a " better stranger" with the gar- 

 den. In fact, there is indeed little taught. No lectures are, as I before 

 said, given on botany in practical gardening, or agricultural chemistry ; on 

 the physiology of plants, &c. : nor is there one competent to give such 

 lectures ; and I defy you to show a good gardener who has been made by 

 the Society. If you were to disguise your dignity, and go round the garden 

 like the sultan Haroun Alraschid, you would hear one half of them laugh 

 most heartily at their teacher — at the institution — its rules — its bye- 

 laws — the drilling — the orders as to dress — straw hats, &c. They admit 

 that if they were to conduct their employer's garden at the same expense 

 and with the same result, they should not stay in their place a year ; nor, 

 indeed, could any thing but the Society afford it. 



" I hope I, or some one whose voice is more powerful, will be able to 

 stimulate you into exertion. Do not be supine, do not act like the country- 

 man in the fable ; you must not call on Hercules to get you out of the 

 mire — no, not even on Priapiis — you must at once clap your shoulder to 

 the wheel. All you have to do is to give the Society and its affairs fair 

 attention ; call around you an active Council ; divide the work into depart- 

 ments, put a responsible person at the head of each; kick down the apple 

 and cabbage stalls, burn the pottles and punnets; dig up the kidney clumps, 

 invite some persons of skill to lay out the grounds over again, dig up the 

 dog-roses, arrange the arboretum properly and scientifically ; do away with 

 growing of plants, &c., for other gardens ; instruct the gardeners, let them 

 have lectures on each department of their art, and have encouragement to 

 educate themselves ; let some of the most deserving have the sole manage- 

 ment of some particular branch of culture; let there be a real and accurate 

 catalogue of fruits and vegetables; turn out nine tenths of the trashy 

 varieties of fruit (which are only fit for pigs) from the fruit quarters ; if 

 there is to be any produce distributed (of the wisdom of which I cannot 

 but doubt), let it be done fairly and openly, according to priority of applica- 

 tion, not according to merit, which no Council can gauge, or let this be 

 distributed to the nurserymen alone ; sell your Transactions cheap, and let 

 the contents be good — not, as now, dear and bad, use wood-cuts instead 

 of fine copper-plates, judge yourself of their contents or set proper persons 

 to do so ; — we shall be safe, and shall prosper." 



Every gardener who can spare \s. 6d., ought to read this pamphlet. 



