128 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ALLOTMENT AND COTTAGE GARDENING. 

 By Alexander Dean, F.R.H.S., V.M.H. 



A grave mistake would be made were it assumed that the only practical 

 gardening found in Great Britain was the work of professional gardeners 

 or of those engaged in commercial horticulture. There is even amongst 

 the section of gardeners described generally as " amateurs," evidence of great 

 gardening knowledge and capacity. These, however, may well on some 

 future occasion speak for themselves, for they are legion. The section of the 

 community to whose garden practice I refer in this paper lies quite out- 

 side any of the garden divisions referred to. They come exclusively from 

 • the great mass of workers, whose many and varied occupations are diverse 

 from horticulture altogether, men whose labour usually is arduous, and 

 such that in doing it little of direction whatever is given to them in the 

 performance of successful gardening. Doubtless their chief instigation 

 to the laborious work which the cultivation of an -allotment or cottage 

 garden impels is the need of providing some sort of addition to their 

 weekly incomes in the form of good healthy food, such as garden or 

 allotment culture produces. Many, however, have native or inherent 

 tastes for garden work, and find in it the best and purest of recreation. 

 These men are all truly born gardeners and evidence the fact that had 

 they been trained as professionals they would have been in such vocation 

 eminently at home, and successful. There are, however, men cultivating 

 gardens and plots who entered upon them without having any defined 

 tastes or desires whatever : these naturally made faulty starts and nume- 

 rous mistakes, yet has the love for gardening grown upon them so strongly 

 that they have become good cultivators in spite of their original ignorance 

 or comparative repugnance to such labour. Cottage gardeners and allot- 

 ment holders may now, under the improved conditions which exist to-day, 

 be counted by hundreds of thousands. Still there is room for many 

 more, and myriads shut up in towns or populous localities, where land is 

 devoted to the worship of the Great Brick God, sigh in vain for the day 

 when they may have their house or cottage embowered in flowers, and 

 enough land attached which may be to them a little garden-heaven, or 

 even but an allotment plot, where, under God's glorious sky and in His 

 free air, they may toil in leisure moments with a delightful sense of free- 

 dom, and of doing work that is healthful, profitable, and enjoyable. 



With the growth of a love for small gardening have come also very 

 many local societies, some promoted by the workers themselves, some, 

 perhaps rather too patronisingly, whose objects are the encouragement of 

 cottage and allotment gardening in their respective parishes and districts 

 through competitions and exhibitions, and these societies, when efficiently 

 utilised, have done great good and have rendered to small gardening active 

 encouragement and assistance. Beyond these, county councils, through 

 the agency of the technical side of their educational work, have now done 

 real good, by placing their garden experts at the disposal of local societies 



