VOL. LV.— No. 3,066. 



SATUEDAY, AUGUST 3, 1912, 



THE 



GARDENERS 



MAGAZINE 



NOTE OF THE WEEK* grades which printing proper passed corded and att^ted facts, but then, 



through, the development of which has, in as we have indicated above, a plan re- 



4- 



Knowledg^e. 



It is at once curious and of absorbing 

 interest to consider how what we term 

 knowledge, w^hich has lifted man to so high 

 a pinnacle above the animal world, and 

 given him such a marvellous grip upon the 

 natural forces of his environment, has been 

 accumulated and built u^p as the ages pro- 

 gressed. How the capacity for thought 

 originated we need not discuss ^ it is not a 

 thing on which fossilised re- 

 mains can throw any light, 

 though in the domain of the 

 remains of human handiwork, 

 including the old flint tools, we 

 get a faint glimpse of progress 

 in contrivance of means to an 

 end , which demonstrates the 

 dawn, or more, of the reasoning 

 power. It is true that in the 

 rest of the animal world, and 

 even to some slight degree in 

 the plant world, we see con- 

 trivances which seem to imply 

 even more than a glimmering of 

 reason, but there is never an 

 iota of that accumulating and 

 combining faculty which man 

 enjoys and employs, that hybri- 

 disation and cross-breeding of 

 thought which has led up, step 

 by step, to his present exalted 



position. One of the most im- 

 portant steps — we may indeed 

 say the most important of all 

 —was the transition and 

 transformation of the intangi- 

 ble thought into visible and 

 transmissible characters. Rude 

 hieroglyphics or crude cunei- 

 form inscriptions on stone and 

 imperishable clay still survive to 

 show Us how this presumably commenced. 

 ^ ocal language doubtless long preceded 



these days, linked together on easily intelli- 

 gible lines -all the intellects of the world. 

 By virtue of this intercommunication, 

 thought breeds thought with greater and 

 greater rapidity. In one train, perhaps, 

 a, mere glimmering of a great idea is 

 conceived, and finds expression, and 

 this in its turn becomes the fertilising 

 germ or enlightening inspiration in an- 

 other. A thousand apparently unconnected 

 and inchoate facts are noted by variou?> 

 individuals, and suddenly, in some brain, a 



A^eals itself, the bricks work themselves 

 into the structure, whose permanence, of 

 course, depends upon their soundness, as 

 with huildings of more substantial charac- 

 ter. Every student of Nature^ every hor- 

 ticulturist or gardener, to bring the point 

 home, is a potential brick-maker, but to be 

 a practical one he must not only experi- 

 ment and observe, but he must give his 

 fellow men the benefit of his knowle<lge by 

 keeping careful record of what he sees. 



Too many there are who go through life, 



and even obtain good positions 



and great respect as experi- 

 enced, practical men, but when 

 they die nearly all, if not all, 

 of their acquired knowledge dies 

 with them. In these days we 



Press whose 



have a Press whose special 

 function it is to collect and dis- 

 £eminate knowlvdge of j^ractical 



value, 'record fresh observa- 

 tions, and, in short, do their 

 best to add, in their own special 

 line, as many bricks as possible 

 to the great Temple of Know- 

 ledge, to the existence of which 

 we all, in one way and another, 

 are infinitely indebted through- 

 out our lives, as the source of 

 both ou ' comforts and neces- 

 saries, to say nothing of our in- 

 tellectu.il enjoyments and 

 general progress. 



mi. JOllX GARDNEK 



g 



ray of light is engendered by their associa- 

 tion, and lo ! a new law is found, and a 

 t'ven these, but vocal language in itself is as myriad other facts are simultaneously illu- 

 transient as the breath that forms it, and, minated, brought into rank, and another 



great forward step is chronicled ; and so it 

 goes on. Tlie more we know the more we 



are able to penetrate the so-called secrets 

 of Nature, secrets no longer, but rewards 

 held out, as it were, by her for the patient 

 student, the poking and prying'' scien- 

 tists, who devote themselves to her study in 

 the thorough-going spirit of research. All 

 this progress, however, depends, and this 

 is really what has inspired us in writing the 

 above, upon the definite and careful record 

 of results. The entire edifice of our know- 

 ledge is built up, as it were, of a myriad of 

 oricks. The raw material is often accumu- 

 ^xtremes there lie of course, the manv lated with little or no plan, as merely re- 



though memory may permit of its bein^ 

 handed on from generation to generation, 

 memory itself is treacherous, and little to 

 '^e relied upon. The graven word, however, 

 fasts indefinitely, and it is one of the -most 

 interesting features of our theme that 

 those, 60 to speak, original marks have been 

 found translatable, and the thoughts 

 therein incorporated have found transmis- 

 sible shape to every civilised brain in all 

 the countless idioms of the world, and even 

 ultimately in the unsubstantial dot and 

 dash, or intermittent flash of the wireless 

 telegraph. In the interim between these two 



Mr. John Gardner, 



who was appointed head gar- 

 der er to the late Sir J ohn 

 Astley, Bart., at Elsham Hall, 

 near Grimsby, in 1868, occupied 

 that position until he retired in 

 October, 1911. In recent \ 

 he served under Sir Francis E. 

 Astley-Corbett, and during the 

 period of forty-three years that he had 

 charge of the ELsham Hall gardens, 

 noth ing but the most cordial relations 

 existed between employers and employed. 



be wondered 



It 



to 



is not 

 the 



to 



at, owing 

 horticulture and 



in 



Mr. 



changes in 

 the fashion of gardening, that 

 Gardner practically remodelled the gar- 

 dens during his tenure of office, and 

 live^l to see much of his earlier planting 

 come to full fruition. When Sir J. Astley 

 institute<l the Elsfham and Worlaby Horti- 

 cultural Society forty-one years ago, Mr. 

 Gardner became the manager of the show 

 anniuiUy held on August Bank Holiday, 

 and the success of the exhibition has been 

 largely due to his work and influence. Mr. 

 Gardner has now resigned his position in 



nds propose 



