Disabilities of young Gardeners. 177 



ployed till darkness put an end to the toils of the day ! I 

 shall now treat you with another example as it happened, and 

 upon the truth of which you may depend, to give you an idea 

 how very stickling they are about a few minutes, in those 

 places where the regular hours are kept. On a certain duke's 

 demesne, hardly the fourth of the distance of the place above 

 mentioned from the said metropolis, there is a gardener of 

 celebrity in the horticultural world, who, like too many others, 

 extorts ten pounds from every journeyman he employs, aside 

 from abilities or qualifications. It happened that several of 

 the young men and a foreman were employed in cleaning 

 walks at some distance from the garden. At the hour of 

 cessation from labour for dinner, three of them strolled away 

 in search of some native plants by a neighbouring river side, 

 in search of which they spent so much time as to be unable 

 to reach their work till ten minutes after the stated hour : on 

 arriving, the foreman told them, that, as they were behind 

 time, he could not allow them to commence work without 

 they first got the liberty of the head gardener. Accordingly, 

 the three set out to hear the decision of their master, which 

 turned out to be the following : — " You must either return, 

 and beg the foreman's pardon ; or else leave the place." Two 

 of them, having already paid their entry money, thought it a 

 pity to sacrifice so much cash for this humbling whim of their 

 master, and accordingly complied: the other, having his 

 money still in his possession, refused, and consequently was 

 immediately dismissed. What man endowed with a healthy 

 body could stoop to such degradation ? Who, with a sound 

 mind, or the spirit of a man, could yield to such debasement ! 

 Some may think I have chosen extreme cases ; but I can assure 

 you that these two are picked out at random, from a host 

 of equal hue, and without going to the right or left in search 

 of them. 



Before concluding, I have a word or two to say about what 

 kind of educated gardeners we may expect shortly. Accord- 

 ing to correspondents of your magazine, we ought, besides a 

 common English education, joined with a general knowledge 

 of arithmetic, to possess an acquaintance with the dead 

 languages, and with as many of the living as possible ; added 

 to these, a very considerable knowledge of natural history 

 and natural philosophy, and also to ti avel, not only through 

 our own island, but to visit the Continent, &c. Now, sup- 

 posing that a father was placed in circumstances capable of 

 giving his son all these qualifications, would you not, if he 

 asked your advice, advise him to put his son to some more 

 Vol. IX. — No. 43. n 



