438 
EFFECT OF GARDENING ON THE RURAL POPULATION. 
that we were judges on one occasion — the two 
rivals were in the field, and both had good 
flowers — one, however, was apparently well 
to do, the other very poor. Seeing that there 
Avere flowers in both stands very incompatible 
with the men's apparent, or rather their osten- 
sible means, we made searching inquiries into 
both their means, and found them very dif- 
ferent. One had beggared himself, and made 
away with his own clothes, and neglected his 
wife's and children's appearance, and spent 
the money in flowers,^the other had been 
regularly served by a gardener in the neigh- 
bourhood with everything from his master's 
collection, and the said gardener " went 
halves" in all the cottager gained by showing 
and selling flowers. In one case, a man had 
been frugal and well off until a wrong 
spirit had been aroused by the award of prizes 
for flowers among men who could not afford 
to buy them. He had been beaten time after 
time by better flowers, and resolved to get 
better still, if possible. He purchased upon 
credit, and paid for them at so much per week, 
which had to be withheld from his family; and 
deprived them of comforts, of respectability, 
and engendered a sort of indifference to ap- 
pearances, that went a long way towards con- 
firmed demoralization, especially as the man, 
from some cause, neglected one of his pay- 
ments, and became reckless, and the dealer, 
seeing he would be likely to lose, took the 
first steps towards compelling payment. The 
other, with the sole ambition of beating his 
fellow but more humble bretfu-en, had con- 
sented to be the receiver of things stolen 
from a gentleman's garden, which, perhaps, 
he would never have thought of but for the 
folly of those who awarded prizes to poor men 
for subjects which are only appropriate to 
those in good circumstances. It may be said 
that the object was only to encourage the 
growth of common flowers ; but where is the 
limit when the prizes are for the best ? They 
might as well offer a race-cup for cottagers' 
horses, and say they meant the cottagers to 
run only their cart-nags, as to give prizes for 
the best flowers shown, and suppose that all 
would show common. But there is no excuse 
for awarding prizes to cottagers for flowers of 
any kind (except, perhaps, cauliflowers), be- 
cause for cottagers' purposes they are perfectly 
useless, and for mere ornament to their gar- 
dens the cottager wants no prize to induce 
him to cultivate all the flowers he ought to 
adopt. There is not one good purpose to be 
attained by inducing cottagers to grow flowers. 
If he loves them, he will get enough for his gar- 
den for his own sake; and if he does not love them, 
all the time he is induced to spend on them is 
labour instead of amusement ; whereas his vege- 
tables ought to bt encouraged; superiority in the 
culture of them is desirable. Everything that 
can influence a working man to occupy his 
time in producing that which is food or money, 
leads him the right way. The expense of 
vegetable seed is comparatively nothing to the 
value of the food produced. There is no 
temptation to beg, borrow, steal, or even to 
buy enough to hurt his home, or deprive his 
family of their proper clothing and comfort, 
so far as his ordinary circumstances permits; 
whereas, if he is induced to lay out crowns 
for this flower, half-sovereigns for that, and 
even shillings for the other, he saddles him- 
self with weekly payments which he cannot 
withhold from his family without curtailing 
their respectability and endangering their 
morals. If the mind be broken down by 
privations, and the pride of neatness and 
cleanliness be wounded for want of the means 
to indulge it, it soon becomes reckless. The 
most creditable pride the mother of a family 
can have is that which she takes in neatness 
and cleanliness. If she be deprived of the 
means to procure decent clothing for herself 
and children, every week renders her condi- 
tion worse, and the case more hopeless, be- 
cause time makes rapid inroads on dress. The 
more homely it is the more constant must be 
the care and attention ; but time and attention 
cannot create new, though it may preserve old 
for a definite period. 
The madness of giving premiums for extra- 
vagance, of rewarding poor men for apeing 
the rich, of encouraging a man whose only 
time for himself is short, to fritter that little 
away upon useless, profitless subjects, is 
worthy " the root of all evil," instead of 
rational men. Yet we find it more or less 
prevail in all councils. If the devil set about 
his work of demoralization ingeniously, he 
could not begin better than by arousing the 
ambition of those who have nothing to spare, 
and induce them to vie with each other in 
wasting what they had not to spare upon 
worthless subjects. Carry this passion on to 
an extreme, and step by step they will com- 
mit every crime against property to advance 
their objects, until a community of contented 
happy beings are converted into thieves or 
receivers. 
We may be rather harsh in our denuncia- 
tions against cottagers being invited to com- 
pete with each other in the exhibition of 
useless subjects ; but it so counteracts all the 
good which arises from showing vegetables, 
that we confess we would rather see the in- 
dustrious classes banished altogether from 
shows than be allowed to compete for prizes 
given for flowers, as if the object were to 
encourage them to prefer ornament to utility, 
waste and extravagance to economy, sharping 
and overreaching to honourable rivalry. 
