66 
HERBACEOUS GARDEN 
My most successful gardeners have been 
foremen from big houses seeking their first 
place as head. They are content with a 
moderate wage to start with, and are thoroughly 
up to date and good growers ; but naturally 
they go on to bigger places with more glass, 
carrying my good wishes with them. They 
perhaps do not understand the cropping of 
vegetables for succession as well as the older 
head gardeners, but they are far more enlight- 
ened, and are generally glad to try new ways. 
To return to the wages question. 30s. to 
35s. is counted a good wage for a head gardener 
with eight or nine men under him. Perhaps 
a cottage and coal and vegetables are given in 
addition. But he has the entire responsibility 
and anxiety of a big place, the hot-houses and 
fruit-houses and forcing-pits. He needs to 
be a good business man, as often there is fruit 
to be marketed ; and yet he has to have an 
insight into things artistic and beautiful. He 
must be a good disciplinarian, and manage his 
men well, to say nothing of finding them. 
He has had a long and arduous training from 
boyhood in many branches, and yet he gets 
considerably lower wages than a chauffeur who 
has perhaps learned his business by driving 
for six months, and who (not a mechanic, 
