EXPENSES 67 
mind you) is getting 35s. a week, furnished 
rooms, and clothes. 
It is a wonderful thing that these able, 
intelligent men can be found for a payment 
so out of all proportion to their ability, and 
only intense love for and interest in their 
profession can account for it. 
The man or woman milliner getting an 
£800 a year salary is no cleverer at combina- 
tions of colour, and has none of the other 
qualifications so necessary to a gardener. 
Little wonder that they die poor men, often 
leaving wife and family totally unprovided for. 
The average wage for a single-handed gardener 
is 20s. or 2 is. a week, and. cottage, vegetables, 
and perhaps fuel. The man with a couple of 
under-gardeners will get 23s. to 25s., and the 
under-gardeners begin usually in country places 
at 15s. a week, rising to 1 8s. ; but there is no 
margin for saving on this nowadays. A care- 
ful, economical man will save his employer 
money in many ways. He saves his string, 
he keeps a basket for old labels, giving them 
a coat of white paint on wet days, instead of 
buying new. He will make his own carnation 
stakes out of some lengths of wire twisted 
three or four times round an iron rod and cut 
off, so forming the coils to support the stem. 
