Impro'vement of Farm- House Gardens. 11 



were, by force. It is very difficult indeed to withstand truth 

 when it is supported by a mild and gentlemanly address. Pre- 

 judice almost always yields to it, and conceited ignorance retires 

 abashed from the contest. 

 Brighton, Oct. 7. 1834. 



Art. IV. On the Improvement of the Gardens attached to Farm- 

 Houses. By Mr. J. Hislop. 



It has often excited my wonder, that gentlemen who are land 

 proprietors do not take notice of the neglected and slovenly 

 condition of the gardens attached to their farm-houses, and do 

 not use their influence with their tenants to induce them to pay 

 more attention to their culture and keeping. There are horti- 

 cultural societies established and establishing everywhere, that 

 hold out inducements to improvement of various kinds, to all 

 classes, from the peer to the peasant, in respect to gardening : 

 but nothing seems to have yet made any salutary impression on, 

 if, indeed, any intelligence of this kind has ever reached, the 

 minds of the great mass of the British farmers. A laudable 

 degree of attention is now given to induce cottagers to attend 

 to the culture of their gardens ; many of these cottagers are 

 employed by the farmers, and ought to receive encouragement 

 from them ; but with what consistency can a farmer say an 

 encouraging word to his labourer, while, in the management (or 

 rather mismanagement) of his own garden, he sets such a 

 disgraceful and slovenly example ? 



Although agriculture and horticulture may be considered as 

 kindred pursuits, yet, strange to say, there is hardly any class of 

 the British community to be found more utterly ignorant and 

 destitute of taste, in respect to gardening, than the great majority 

 of our farmers; and to so absurd a pitch is this carried, that 

 many of them will even make such ignorance the subject of a 

 sort of clownilh boast, as if their own gardens were a concern far 

 below their notice. It sometimes happens that the good lady 

 of the farm-house, or her daughter, or both, contract some 

 taste for gardening and the culture of flowers (it would be 

 strange if they escaped it entirely). The ill-assorted, discou- 

 raged, and often abortive attempts they make to introduce 

 something like taste or ornament (however laudable the motive), 

 are often more calculated to excite commiseration than any 

 other feeling, and an earnest desire to see it otherwise with 

 them. What, then, is to be done ? Should horticultural socie- 

 ties offer premiums of any kind to farmers specially, to induce 

 them to lay aside their clownish contempt for their gardens, and 



