168 Difficulties of young Gardeners 



are anxious to witness his rationale of culture, provided they 

 have full opportunity of doing so, and receiving all the neces- 

 sary instruction and information ; but there are instances 

 where, from attendant circumstances, it is impossible diat 

 these expectations can be realised, as in the case of a much 

 praised establishment not a hundred miles from London, 

 where the young men must pay a large premium before they 

 are admitted into the grounds, and yet the individual who 

 exacts this sum considers it beneath him to hold any inter- 

 course with his men, and (as I have been informed) deigns 

 not to hear a request or grant a favour, unless submitted to 

 his consideration by being sent upon paper, in the form of a 

 petition. I am at a loss to know how any young man can 

 receive the worth of his money in such a place as this. It is, 

 however, of little use mentioning instances ; we must attack 

 the principle itself, as the practice is now becoming so fashion- 

 able, that we can scarcely but come to the conclusion that it 

 is either encouraged or winked at by gentlemen, as an excuse 

 for not giving their head gardeners better wages. That it is 

 attended with injurious results to the journeyman gardener 

 (unless when more than compensated by the kindness and 

 communicativeness of his master) cannot for a moment be 

 doubted, were no other evils resulting from it than the impos- 

 sibility, to which it exposes him, of purchasing books connected 

 with his profession, many of which, from their extravagant 

 price, are already too difficult to be obtained. Before leaving 

 the subject, I shall advert to an assertion of Mr. Whid- 

 den's (Vol. VIIl. p. 730.), that " no honest gardener would 

 be so great a blockhead as to give "201. for a situation." Such 

 a sweeping declaration leads me, in charity, to suppose, that 

 Mr. Whidden is one of those fortunate individuals who have 

 never experienced the difficulties with which gardeners are 

 beset. We may safely conclude that no man would do so by 

 an act of pure volition, any more than the young gardener 

 who consents to pay a premium at every establishment he 

 enters. It is necessity which causes the latter to pay out of 

 his wages from 1^. to 4s. per week, or a premium of from 4/. 

 to 20/., that he may be admitted into an establishment merely 

 as a workman ; and, impelled by the same necessity, the in- 

 telligent honest gardener, who had (as many have) little in- 

 terest or influence to depend upon, would show very few signs 

 of blockheadism by giving 201., if he could raise as much 

 money, for a respectable situation, where he was likely to be 

 comfortable, in preference to being without employment, or 

 begging admittance into a nursery, and, when there, living 

 for two or three years in all the agonies of disappointed hope. 



