140 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Most good employers and their gardeners afford facilities for self- 

 instruction to their men, and this is best done, as I believe, without 

 any coddling or over-persuasion. It is not so much what you give 

 as what you enable a man to earn or win for himself — it is not what is 

 taught, but what men are led to learn for themselves — that dees them and 

 the nation at large the most good. Above all, young men should be told 

 and shown early in their career that it is not mere knowledge as knowledge, 

 but the practical application of good lessons well learned, that is really 

 serviceable in the world's progress. The great thing for young gardeners 

 to do is to learn the principles of horticultural science or the basal rules 

 of the craft first, as they may do readily in Macmillan's primers on 

 horticulture, geology, botany, logic, political economy, and chemistry. 



Drawing to scale and a moderate ability in freehand sketching are one 

 of the best aids a gardener can possess in his calling. A rude pencil or 

 pen diagram with measurements added in figures is better than either 

 verbal or written description, and will save time, trouble, misapprehension, 

 and labour in many ways. 



Finally, young gardeners must learn all the constants or set rules 

 of garden craft, even though as master gardeners they may modify or 

 even now and then break them. 



New methods are few only, but of great economic importance. Chief 

 amongst them perhaps is the " retarding " process, or freezing apparatus, 

 by which many hardy shrubs, plants, bulbs, vegetables, and flowers may 

 be held inanimate for months and then brought to perfection at will. 

 In this way we get Lilac and Lilies and other things any day in the year, 

 or just when we require them. The use of ether, again, assists materially 

 in the process of forcing or acceleration, and the electric light may on 

 emergency be pressed into our service to the same end. 



These scientific resources of civilisation have already worked wonders 

 as practically applied by trade growers, and it would appear that time and 

 season will be done away with, and it will be possible to have many choice 

 garden products in the market and on our tables any or every day in the 

 year. We must look also for new legislation on the important question 

 of diseases (fungoid or otherwise), insects, and weeds in gardens and 

 fields alike. Sir James Rankin, M.P., has already a Bill in the House of 

 Commons, which has passed the first reading, " with a view to the eradi- 

 cation of disease and insects from amongst fruit trees &c. in nursery 

 gardens." This will mean some quarantine regulations and inspection 

 of imported stocks, seeds, &c, and may lead to a pathological section being 

 added to the existing machinery of the Department of Agriculture ; in 

 a word, it is becoming as serious to harbour diseased or insect-infected 

 plants as it is to keep diseased animals. 



In considering horticultural progress the Royal Horticultural Society 

 may be taken as an index, or let us say as a barometer, showing the high 

 pressure and popularity of gardening in England. We need scarcely 

 ask whether garden craft is spreading when the fellowships of our 

 premier S cicty ;iro increasing by a thousand or more year by year. 



Then the Royal Botanic Society is also progressing and doing good 

 work', though perhaps along slightly different lines. To put the difference 

 of method, one may say that the R.H.S. teaches gardening as associated 



