May 11, 1871. ] 



JOURNAL OP HOETICDLTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



337 



" Oh ! I know how to do that. I have dug up our garden 

 twice every year since I was a little boy." 



" Mach as a child digs up the sand on the shores at Scar- 

 borough, playing with the spade in one band, never thinking 

 that the other need not be idle and that the foot might bring 

 its force. You would find it very different work if you had an 

 acre of a hundred-years-old sheep pasture to make ready for 

 Potatoes, and there is no escaping this digging portion. It is 

 what all boys are set to at the beginning. I know it was mine, 

 and not very easy. I had to do it over three times with this 

 ■oomment — 'Well done is once done.' And when the digging is 

 ■satisfactorily done there remain a world of things you must 

 try to understand thoroughly. There are many garden labourers 

 but few real gardeners — the fact is, so many men bring hands 

 but no brains to their work. You will have to learn the science 

 of tree and shrub planting — the when, and how, and where, so 

 that you do not remove trees in summer, or thrust th'ir roots 

 into a hard hole scooped out of the heavy soil with a spade, 

 unmindfnl how they resume their hold of life in the lower 

 world ; and you must know when it is best to prune, and re- 

 member the best for one plant is not the best for all, so that 

 your subjects lose not a year's growth or die by cruel bleed- 

 ing. "You will have to roll, and mow, and sweep, and keep a 

 ^ark green velvety lawj equal if not superior to your neigh- 

 bour's. You will have to rake, and weed, ard keep tidy ; to sow 

 seeds, and plant out plants, and afford almost invisible supports 

 to weakly stems. You must be able to name seeds by sight, 

 know good from bad, and be capable of fingering the very finest 

 ■dust without its slipping from you unaware to come up in thick 

 patches with wide unoccupied spaces. Tin will have to learn 

 all the diversilies of plant culture from a Heath to an Orchid, 

 know their growing and rest times and blooming periods, and be 

 ■aver open-eyed to their peculiar enemies; if you forget these 

 they will multiply with fearful rapidity. Have yon heard 

 •enough, George ?" 



" Nay, go on to the end, Mark ; you cannot have much more 

 to say." 



"You will have to gather fruit for the kitchen ; take care in 

 your haste (tor kitchen authorities never ask for a thing until 

 they just want it), that yon do not destroy next year's blossoms. 

 Tou will have to puU fruit for the parlour ; you must do it if 

 possible without touching ; you must not bruise it nor rob it of 

 a particle of its bloom, and there is not a fruit giovn, from a 

 Peach to an Apple, over which nature does not spread a delicate 

 touch-me-not hue. You will have to learn how to plan and lay 

 out a garden with a proper regard to the fitness of its surround- 

 ings ; so to harmonise colours th^t the gay picture you paint 

 on the summer lawn shall offend neither the ancient law of 

 •order, nor the changing rule of fashion, nor the true artist's 

 taste. Woe to your good name it vou are colour-blind. Nor 

 'have you done with flowers yet. You will have to enter into 

 <!loser and more vexatious relations with them. You will have 

 to arrange flowers for drawing-room and dinner-table decora- 

 tion. Don't send your best and fnirest for the latter purpose, 

 to mingle their sweet perfumes with the smell of fish and soup, 

 and lose their charms too rapidly in the heated atmosphere 

 which floats over a well-prepared dining table. You will have 

 to put together flowers for button-holes, for ball and brides' 

 bouquets, to manipulate the bits of living mosaic that they shall 

 iorm one campl te whole, free from vulgar gorgeonsness and 

 tame insipidity. All this you will have to learn, much as a 

 lawyer's clerk, w'thout being taught, and with but little time 

 ■for book lore ; for it you do but halt your duty you will fall 

 asleep on winter evenings before you have turned over many 

 pages. The fresh air you spoke of gives an appetite to growing 

 lads, which when appeased induces slumber — slumber so re- 

 fteshing that now, as in the old time, a king might envv." 



" Well, there is variety in your long list, cousin Mark ; no 

 'fear of ennui." 



" Bat I have not done yet ; the worst is to eome. You will 

 iiave to turn out at all hours, Saodays not excepted, and in all 

 weathers, to learn the economy of stove fires — how to obtain 

 the most heat out of the least fuel. You must never make a 

 mistake in this quarter, never throw more coal or cinders on 

 your fire than will be needed, or leave your dampers out whan 

 they would be better in, or the valve of your ashpit door open 

 with a fire burning brightly. At the gam? time you must not 

 let your fire go too low lest a dead oa1m settle en the water lo 

 your boiler, and this calm be c-immunicited to the should-ba 

 «ver-circulating liquid in your pipes." 



" Eaally, Mark, an uneducated boy ootild do that. Why 

 should a gardener be troubled ?" 



" When you rise to be head man, George, if you ever do, it 

 will benefit you little to have fifty stokers under you if you do 

 not fully comprehend the principle of heating glass houses ; 

 nine times out of ten this is only gained by practice. I cannot 

 think why so many should fear to soil their hands with the 

 coal and smoke of an island home, half the wealth of which is 

 earned by its liberal consumption, as though when the work 

 was done they would not wash white again." 



" Anything more, Mark ?" 



" Do you care to know, George, or have the fires burned out 

 your enthusiasm ? You will be expected to interpret aright the 

 winds, and stars, and sky ; to follow all the fickle changes of 

 an ever-changing climate; never to let fire heat and sun heat 

 meet in your plant houses ; never to let your thermometer rise 

 above or fall below a certain mark — this not only on working 

 days in working hours, but day and night, feast day and fast 

 day, from the beginning of the year to its close. Yuu will soon 

 know the winter stars right well, and be very familiar with the 

 crunch of the crisp snow under your feet." 



" Have you done ?" 



" No, You will have more than yourself to consider and to 

 please. I have heard young girls say they would not settle in 

 the best place in the world it there was more than one mistress, 

 but a gardener seldom has the good luck to have but one master. 

 To say nothing of master's wife, there is master's cook, a 

 terrible power in a p'ace, an authority not to be slighted nor 

 disregarded. And then, George, there is no ase in complaining 

 when things go the wrong way, as they are sure to do at times ; 

 no amount of grumbling can lighten your real or fancied load, 

 or ease the hardship of your position. Of all men gardeners 

 are most subject ti ignorant worrying, and from their natural 

 temperament they are the least able to bear it. They are said 

 to have their full shire of perseverance, but less of patience. 

 They suffer often from a want of confidence on the part of their 

 employers. This unpleasant feeling sours the temper and 

 spoils the character, and makes work, otherwise easy and plea- 

 sant, heavy and disagreeable. There is but one escape from 

 this torment— to grow up and out of it, and in the growing and 

 doing to keep a name above blemish or reproach, not more for 

 those around you than for yourself, so that you lower not your 

 self-respect." 



" It is a sombre picture you have drawn, Mark, yet I still 

 think I shall try it. I fancy there is a reverse side you have 

 not turned up ; it cannot be all work, work, too, in the shade ; 

 there must be some hours of quiet rest, and gleams of sun- 

 shine, rest not overpowered by sleep, and sunshine that 

 strengthens without being oppressive." 



"Yes, you are right. Sball I tell you what you will gain, 

 what you cannot help to gain in a greater or less degree? — a 

 deeper inlook into Nature's secrets, a quicker ear to catch the 

 music of warbling birds, of gurgling brooks, of rustling trees; 

 much knowledge expressed or unexpressed of the ways and 

 doings of insect life; a warmer sympathy with the humble 

 living things that surround your path ; a fuller appreciation of 

 Nature's charms, those touches of beauty which make glorious 

 the early morning and the long evening twilight, and leave an 

 after-glow of radiant thoughts to brighten the long winter 

 nights." — Maud. 



NOTES AND GLEANINGS. 

 We have received from Messrs. Ckipps & Son, Florists, Tun- 

 bridge Wells, some very beautiful coloured portraits of three 

 new HABDY HYBKiD CLEiiiTisEs, quite distinct from all others, 

 and amongst the most attractive of this very beautiful and 

 deservedly popular race of hardy climbers. They commence 

 blooming towards the end of May, and conlinne in flower until 

 the buds are destroyed by frost. Under glass they do not 

 rievelope their rich tints eo readily as it grown in the open air. 

 Eich kind has been awarded a first-class certificate by the 

 Floral Committee at South Kensington. One named Lady 

 CaroHne Ncvill, has well-formed lanuginosa-like flowers, from 

 6 to 7 inches in diameter ; colour delicate azure blue, with a 

 broad purplish lilac longitudinal band in the centre of each 

 petal; foliage and growth of lanuginosa. The second. Star of 

 India, has flowers 4 to 5 inches in diameter ; colour rich violet 

 purple, with a rosy purple band in the centre of each petal; 

 foliage and growth of C. J^ckmanni. This is undoubtedly the 

 most effective of the dark-flowered hybrids. The third is Tun- 

 bridgensis, having flowers 4 to 6 inches in dinmeter, of perfect 

 form ; colour dark blue, shaded with purple, midrib dark 

 purple. This is also of the Jackmanni class ; it is a very abnn- 



