January 22, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



43 



Fig. 13. — Celtis occidentalis: Coa 



hundreds of young- gardeners, who have been employed here 

 at Kew, and with scarcely an exception I have found that those 

 men who had been trained in the sciences, in professed horti- 

 cultural schools, were much inferior as gardeners, i. e., culti- 

 vators, to men who had devoted themselves to the study of 

 the art of gardening, and practised it in good gardens. Gar- 

 dening is instinctive, and a man must love plants for their 

 beauty, not as botanical curiosities or anatomical studies, if he 

 is ever to shine as a gardener. The best gardening school is 

 a good garden, where what is done is done earnestly ; and the 

 best gardeners are men who study first the plant as a thing to 

 be grown well, and make it their special business to be con- 



it of Massachusetts. — See page 39. 



stantly on the look out for " wrinkles" which shall help them 

 in their art. As a rule, when a man begins seriously to count 

 stamens and cut sections, he has started on a road that will 

 take him away from gardening, if he is not careful ; it may 

 lead him to something that is considered higher than garden- 

 ing, which, however, is beside the point. IV. Watson. 



London. 



[No doubt it is true that scientific study alone will not 

 suffice for the equipment of a uractical cultivator ; but few 

 persons will deny that it is possible to add with advantage 

 to practical training in the art of gardening some knowl- 

 edge of the sciences upon which it rests. — Ed.] ^ 



