88 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



firms ; but (4) private individuals form the great body of the 

 employers of all grades of gardeners. The chief object of all 

 the employers is the same, viz. to obtain through the services of 

 the gardener an adequate return, in the shape of produce or 

 pleasure, for the amount expended in the maintenance of the 

 establishment, of whatever nature it may be. In commercial 

 gardening the value of the produce is the sole object in view, and 

 pleasure counts for nothing unless it can be made to show a 

 clear money profit on the expenditure in creating it. Public 

 gardening is chiefly devoted to the interests of science and the 

 pleasures of the people ; while private gardening is generally, if 

 not invariably, a combination of both profit and pleasure, the one 

 or the other predominating according to the tastes and circum- 

 stances of the owner of the garden. The higher the quality and 

 the larger the supply which the gardener can produce in first- 

 rate style, in accordance with his employer's wishes and the 

 means available, the greater will be his success and the higher 

 ought his services to be appreciated. 



Having so far dealt with gardeners and gardeners' employers 

 generally, as bearing on the subject of this paper, I will now 

 direct my remarks more particularly to gardeners and their 

 employers in private establishments, great and small, upon 

 which I believe it is desired I should express my views, 

 which are founded upon a fairly wide experience of some forty 

 years of active life and close observation among professional 

 gardeners and their employers in the United Kingdom. The 

 great mass of the employers of gardeners is composed of persons 

 who either own or lease a certain portion of land, which they 

 desire to use for gardening, or what is commonly called horticul- 

 tural purposes. The extent of the ground varies from the small 

 single-handed place, which may be taken for our purpose as the 

 lowest grade of the regular professional gardener, to that of many 

 acres connected with royal establishments and the mansions of 

 the wealthy. Be the extent of the garden what it may, great or 

 small, the principles which underlie its management, and the 

 maintenance of it in a proper state of order and efficiency, are 

 identically the same. The details vary to an unlimited extent, 

 which the practical gardener is ever learning, according to place 

 and circumstances ; but the fundamental laws are everywhere 

 the same, and it is in their successful application, through the 



