A Treatise on the Behavior to Gardeners 
(Sonic years ago the London (England) Times published the collected essays on gardening in book form that hod appeared in its 
columns weekly during the previous year and a half. These weekly essays had attracted wide publicity owing to their very enter- 
taining and informative, not to say learned, character. Not only did they betoken an author who was imbued with consuming love 
of gardening, but one who had traveled much and found the plants to write of in their native habits and who had seen many of 
the finest gardens in all parts of Europe. He remained anonymous, but in inner gardening circles it zeas freely rumored that the 
writer was none other than Lord Redesdale, formerly A. B. Freeman-Mitford, heritor of one of England's famous estates and 
gardens, namely, that of Batsford in Gloucestershire. When Lord Redesdale found it incumbent upon him to offer bis estate for 
rent, it zvas even said that this was necessitated by the fact that he had burdened his finances by over-elaborate gardening. Pos- 
sibly that may not be true; but that the gardens at Batsford, ampng the Malvern Hills, are beautiful and extensive, is a fact. Lord 
Redesdale was euphemistically called King Edward I'H's "bead gardener," and he certainly was a close intimate friend of King 
Edward, who carried out many alterations in the gardens at Windsor and Sandringham during his reign. Redesdale also took an 
active part in more than one delegation of British horticulturists in events on the continent and lias drawn plaudits from the Trench 
and Belgian grozcers and gardeners because of the richness of his oratory, his Trench being faultlessly spoken and as literary and 
learned as his "Studies in Gardening." It is a pity that these latter arc only obtainable secondhand noiv, the edition having sold 
out quickly. When he was Freeman-Mitford, before rcceizing his title, his lordship was known as the author of "The Bamboo 
Garden." Bamboo gardens thereafter became favorite features of many English places. 
The following is a chapter on "Behavior to Gardeners." from his boob "Studies in Gardening," and regarded by many as one 
of the best books ever published on gardening.) 
THE relation between gardener and employer is not 
an easy one, especially if the employer is a garden- 
er himself. There is apt to be a conflict of tastes ; 
and the better the gardener the more acute that conflict is 
likely to be. Every good gardener is sure to have his own 
taste in flowers and their arrangement, and in these days 
it is not often the taste of his employer. The amateur 
in gardening is a revolutionary ; the professional a con- 
servative. He has learned it well ; it has brought him 
triumphs plain for everyone to see. His ribbon borders 
have been the talk of the place, and he has won many 
prizes at the local flower show, the certificates of which 
he nails up in his conservatory. Naturally he wishes to 
persist in his ribbon borders and his prize winning. But 
his employer, if he is a gardener himself, has other 
ideas which, to the professional, seem merely the result 
of ignorance. The consequence of this conflict in tastes 
may be some real unhappiness to the gardener. He has 
his duty to his employer, of course, and he can only 
keep his place by doing it. But he has also his artistic 
conscience. This he cannot satisfy on herbaceous bor- 
ders or bulbs in the grass or rock gardens. Other 
gardeners have been accustomed to admire the florid 
health of his begonias, the contrasing glare of h\> 
geraniums and lobelias, the precision of his carpet bed- 
ding, and the enormity of his chrysanthemums. The 
revolution takes place, and instead of these proofs of his 
skill what has he to show his friends? Daffodils in the 
grass which, they know, will grow of themselves. Great 
lumbering larkspurs and phloxes fit only for cottage 
gardens, not for a gentleman's place. 
His employer takes no pride in his flower-show- 
triumphs ; but rather discourages them, grudging the 
time that is necessary for their achievement. Indeed, 
he takes no pride in anything that is worth doing ; and 
has no appreciation of real knowledge and skill. 
He is all for experiment and for growing weeds where 
there ought to be flowers, and flowers where there ought 
to be weeds. In fact, he seems not to know the differ- 
ence between a weed and a flower. Very likely he will 
waste good ground and manure upon single roses, and 
will have no eye for the perfections of Frau Karl Dru- 
schki. In taste he is a mere anarchist. In knowledge 
he is altogether wanting; at least, whatever he knows 
he has got from books written by people like himself. 
Yet he presumes to have opinions and, what is worse, 
to enforce them. He ravages the garden and no one 
can stop him, because it is his own according to the 
law. Even the gardener who has been a conservative all 
his life, in politics as well as gardening, must feel the in- 
iquity of this. He must feel that there is a higher law 
which gives him some property in what he has made 
beautiful ; and the less he reasons about it the more 
deeply he will feel it. 
But to the employer who is an enthusiast for the new 
horticulture these tastes and ideas of his gardener will 
seem the result of mere arrogant stupidity. He will as- 
sume that the gardener wants to grow geraniums and 
calceolarias, because he can grow nothing else. It is 
his business, as a gardener, to produce whatever his 
employer asks for. He has been gardening all his life, 
yet he knows nothing about Alpines, not even their 
names, and refuses to take an interest in them. "The 
worst of him is," cries the employer, "that he will not 
learn. He thinks he knows everything and he knows 
nothing." And all the while that is what the gardener 
is whispering to himself about the employer. It would 
not matter if the employer would attend to his own busi- 
ness, whatever it may be, and leave the garden to its 
proper master. But this he will not do. For some un- 
known reason he must try his hand at a business for 
which he is constitutionally unfitted. He blunders about 
the garden, botching jobs which he has paid others to 
do for him, and demoralizing the under-gardeners with 
his messy habits. It is impossible to see him at work 
without despising him in your heart ; and then precious 
time has to be spent in repairing the damage which he 
does. Meanwhile the employer is also watching his 
gardener at work and despising him in his heart. He 
is the slave of a brainless routine. 
Gardeners have a great power of passive rebellion. 
They take your orders and seem to be carrying them out, 
and yet nothing comes of it. You may have a fanatical dis- 
like of bedding plants, and think that you have extirpated 
them, yet all the while there are geraniums and calceo- 
larias and even echeverias lurking through the winter 
in some secret frame ; and in due season they will ap- 
pear in the garden again, and the gardener will say that 
he had to fill up with something. If you are a ruthless 
man, perhaps you will have them pulled up. But you 
will find that for some reason nothing else will grow 
where the gardener thinks they ought to be. It is a 
place ordained by nature for bedding plants; year after 
vear thev will come there unless you turf it up ; and if 
vou do that they will break out somewhere else. There 
is also a curious difficulty about the planting of bulbs in 
the grass. You tell vour gardener that he is to arrange 
them in a natural disorder, vou may even make a plan 
for him with dots for the bulbs on a piece of paper, and 
he will seem to listen and observe, and will say that he 
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