MODERN" PROGRESS IX HORTICULTURE. 



141 



with botany, while the R.B.S. teaches botany as associated with gardening. 

 It is tweedledum v. tweedledee, and the result is a less of force and to 

 some extent a needless competition, and it is a matter of regret that the 

 two Societies cannot co-operate for the public good. Local societies we 

 must have, and very useful work is done by them ; but even these are 

 all the more useful if federated with the central authority and prestige 

 of the R.H.S. of England. 



On all sides we see evidence of combination and co-operation in the 

 farming world and in other forms of productive and distributing com- 

 merce, but gardeners as a body hold aloof from organised association, 

 as some of us think, to their own loss both individually and collectively. 



All craftsmen and industrial workers must organise " for defence, not 

 defiance " now-a-days, and gentlemen's gardeners as isolated units scattered 

 all over the length and breadth of Great Britain and Ireland are like 

 sheep without a shepherd, and their isolation renders them defenceless 

 against imposition of many kinds. If it be true that " union is strength " 

 it must often follow that isolation and weakness are often, even if not 

 always, synonymous terms. 



A well-organised national union or guild of British gardeners would 

 do more than any other thing I know to encourage the progress and 

 improvement of gardening in the British Islands. 



To sum up, then, my present argument is this, that method and skill 

 in the best private gardens are up to a very high state of excellence, but 

 that the most economical production and the largest and best crops — I do 

 not say of the best varieties in all cases — are to-day produced in our 

 concentrated trade or market gardens. 



I also may suggest that no finer produce is grown in private gardens 

 now than was grown fifty years ago, either in the shape of fruit, 

 vegetables, or flowers, despite the influx of new and improved varieties. 

 The old records now beaten are but few. 



I am no politician or prophet ; I merely note the signs of the times ; 

 and I hope I have shown, or at least suggested, that gardening, formerly 

 aristocratic, conservative, and secretive, is now democratic, more generally 

 diffused, and more liberal, and that as an art or craft it is open to peer 

 and peasant alike; open to "all sorts and conditions of men," open as 

 is the sunshine or the light of day. 



