OPERATIONS OF GENERAL MANAGEMENT. 



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think, is proved by the excellent moral character of almost all professional 

 gardeners, and hy the high degree of intelligence and scientific knowledge 

 which many of them acquire. There are few persons, we beliere, who have 

 a more extensive personal knowledge of British master-gardeners than we 

 have, and we also know a good many on the Continent ; and we must say 

 that, as a body, we have the very highest respect for them. They are 

 almost all great readers ; and in consequence of this, the intellectual and 

 moral powers of many of them have been developed in a manner that com- 

 mands our utmost veneration. There is scarcely a science or an art which 

 some master-gardener of our acquaintance has not of his own accord taken 

 up and studied from books, so as to obtain a respectable degree of knowledge 

 of it. We know a number who have taught themselves several languages, 

 and one of the best Hebrew scholars in Scotland, as we are informed by a 

 clergyman (a good judge), is a gardener, who taught himself that language 

 without the assistance of a master. We know gardeners that excel in almost 

 every department of mathematics and geometry. Some are scientific mete- 

 orologists, naturalists in all the departments, and a number are good drafts- 

 men. Many Scotch gardeners dip into metaphysics, and we have long 

 known one whose library contains all the best English works on the subject, 

 including those of Reid, Kames, Stuart, Monboddo, Drummond, and many 

 others, besides translations. The development of so much talent among 

 gardeners is no doubt owing to the nature of the profession, which excites 

 thought ; to the isolation of their dwellings and the necessity of their 

 staying at home in the evenings to look after hothouse fires, and very 

 much also to the kind indulgence of their masters, who, with very few excep- 

 tions, allow them the use of whatever books they want from their own 

 libraries. Most employers also make presents of books to their gardeners ; 



and some, of which Lord is the most magnificent example that we 



know, have established in their gardens, libraries, with mathematical instru- 

 ments, globes, and maps. Another more recent yet grand cause of the 

 development of the minds of gardeners is the practice, which has become 

 general among them within the last twenty years, of writing for the press. 

 The Transactions of the Horticultural Society of London, and the Memoirs 

 of the Caledonian Society, first called forth this talent, which, as the gar- 

 dening books in existence previously to the first edition of our Encyclopcedia 

 of Gardening will show, had been confined to very few persons. The 

 grand stimulus to writing, however, was given by the Gardeners Magazine, 

 a work most liberally supported by the contributions of gardeners ; and how 

 generally this has called forth the talent of writing among both masters and 

 journeymen will appear by the abundance of communications which continue 

 not only to be supplied to that periodical, and several others which appear 

 monthly, but to two weekly gardening newspapers. Amateurs also have 

 very generally become writers on horticultural subjects; and from the 

 dififerent views which many of them take from those held by practical men, 

 the discussions they often elicit prove highly instructive to all parties. "\Fhat 

 we greatly admire in all this intellectual progress is, that gardeners still 

 i maintain their modesty of deportment and that high moral character, which 

 command the respect of their employers and of all who know them. 



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