1 78 Disabilities of young Gardeners. 



profitable occupation than that of a gardener; in wliich he 

 would have to labour for ten or twelve years, under gardeners 

 ten or twenty times more ignorant than himself, and that, 

 too, for a remuneration barely sufficient to support him in 

 existence; where he would have to contend with all the 

 privations and ignominy of a young gardener's life ; and, 

 after all, be placed in a situation, perhaps, where a whim- 

 sical master, or a capricious mistress, an invidious land 

 steward, a self-conceited ignorant housekeeper, or a greasy 

 cook, would be continually pestering his brains, if not daily 

 endangering him of his situation ? I ask, would you not con- 

 sider that parent as only a slight remove from a madman, 

 who would be so utterly devoid of common sense as to do so ? 

 First, then, let the gardener receive a recompense worthy of 

 these qualifications, and, by necessary consequence, learned 

 and scientific gardeners will immediately follow ; but not till 

 then. This is the true solution of the question. Rejecting 

 empirics, and taking gardeners as a body, I do think they are 

 every whit as well learned as they are well paid ; and I question 

 very much whether the great and learned Sir Henry Steuart 

 (giving every allowance for the superior talents and genius 

 which have been conferred upon him), if he had received but 

 an indifferent education, and had had to encounter the disad- 

 vantages of the gardener, would have been qualified to have 

 exposed our ignorance and self-sufficiency; or whether, in 

 these circumstances, he would have been able to have arrived 

 at mediocrity in our profession ? If an effort be not made 

 shortly for the raising of the situation of the young gardener, 

 we, as a professional body, shall fall back in knowledge; and, 

 a recession once fairly begun, we shall recede with accelerated 

 rapidity, and perhaps (like some of the laws of the uni- 

 verse) our velocity will increase according to the squares of 

 the distances passed over, and none can tell where we may 

 finally stand. 



I have extended these observations much beyond my anti- 

 cipation, and I find that I could yet say a little more upon this 

 rather touching subject; but, in case you think me tedious, I 

 shall conclude by stating that, if you publish them, you will 

 give publicity to the sentiments of the majority of young gar- 

 deners on this subject, so far as I have been able to ascertain 

 them, sentiments impressed upon them by observation, and 

 taught them by that rigid schoolmaster experience, as well as 

 on. Sir, yours, &c. 



Ephebicus Horticultor. 

 Peeblesshire, Jan. 29. 1833. 



