HINTS TO YOUNG GARDENERS ON MENTAL IMPROVEMENT. 207 
We cannot allow this occasion to pass, without exhorting'all our readers to whom 
these articles have possessed the slightest interest, to gratify us with their ideas on 
any portion of the subject which we may inadvertently have omitted. Our pages may 
always be regarded by the enlightened culturist as a faithful vehicle for the trans- 
mission to the world of whatever opinions may be entertained. But, whether our 
Magazine or other journals may be the favoured medium of communication, we 
would earnestly entreat every individual who has bestowed any attention on the 
points we have thus so largely discussed, to digest and mature his opinions, and 
commit them to some channel whereby they can be made publicly beneficial and 
available. By an undisguised declaration of the views current among the leading 
members of any community, these being understood to combine the lesser differences 
of their more humble compeers, errors are speedily eliminated, and sound philoso- 
phical principles elicited and established. 
FAMILIAR HINTS TO YOUNG GARDENERS ON MENTAL 
IMPROVEMENT. 
Every thing that tends to ameliorate the mental condition of gardeners, by 
burnishing their intellectual faculties, and prompting them to judicious exertion, 
must eventually prove instrumental in advancing the interests of horticultural 
science, and elevating and ennobling its sister art in the estimation of the higher 
orders of society. With this impression deeply graven on our minds, we have 
penned the following hints to the junior branches of our profession, in the hope of 
inciting them to a greater degree of vigilance and ardour in the cultivation and 
development of their thinking and reasoning powers. 
It is an established and incontrovertible axiom in educational philosophy, that 
youth is the season for study and improvement. Nor must this be misunderstood 
as restricted to the term usually devoted to scholastic acquirements. It is alike 
applicable to the states of adolescence and early manhood, and extends even to the 
meridian of life. On the young gardener, especially, a heavy responsibility 
devolves, to devote this period to a constant and steady application to his vocation, 
and the general enrichment of his mind ; for according to the proficiency he attains 
in these conjoined particulars, his ultimate promotion entirely depends. Seldom 
sufficiently educated in mere rudimentary knowledge, all his leisure moments 
require to be devoted to self-instruction ; while the more vividly he perceives the 
importance of this duty, and the more faithfully he acts in conformity to such 
apprehension, the greater will be his own subsequent happiness, usefulness, and 
honour. 
All real friends of mankind must have observed with pleasure the spirit of 
progression that is now abroad, and the anxious concern manifested by operatives 
