December 28, 1882. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 585 
28th 
Tn 
29th 
F 
30th 
S 
31st 
Son 
1st Sunday after Christmas. 
1st 
M 
Sale of Bulbs at Mr. Stevens’s Rooms, Covent Garden. 
2nd 
TU 
3rd 
W 
REPORTING PROGRESS. 
.T is the custom for individuals in whatever 
sphere of life they may move to periodically 
look into those affairs which most intimately 
concern them, with the object of determining 
sY^ydlT'?/ as accurately as possible their present position 
anc * future prospects. Similarly it is desirable 
* l>- to examine, as well as circumstances permit, those 
matters with which they are identified in the way 
of trade, or interested in as a pursuit that affords them 
wholesome health-giving exercise, from which they hope to 
derive pleasure and satisfaction. This custom is a safe and ex¬ 
cellent one, and the natural time for carrying it out is towards 
the close of the year ; this seasonable work accomplished, and 
not till then, can they properly report progress. 
In reporting progress in the great industry of horticulture 
there is a tendency to take a view too limited for properly com¬ 
prehending the subject. A year is but a short time for measur¬ 
ing the stages of advancement of that of which Nature is the 
author and man only the guide. Yet much may be done in a 
year, and that much has been done in that short period w 7 e have 
good evidence ; but in order to understand the full import of 
the general progress that has been effected we must take a 
further backward glance. Let the old look back to the period 
of their middle age, and the middle-aged look back to the days 
of their early manhood, and carefully estimate the condition of 
gardening then with the appliances at the time, and then look 
at the position of the craft now. They will have seen changes 
occur—something advancing and something receding in accord¬ 
ance with natural laws or the fleeting fashion of the hour ; 
but these are mere incidents in the life of that which is essen¬ 
tially diversified, yet which is gaining vigour with the lapse of 
years. 
The decline of horticulture has been -whispered by the timid. 
With as much reason they might bemoan the decline of civili¬ 
sation or the decline of man. Not in this our day is there any 
substantial evidence of the decline of one or the other; the 
three are co-existent and progressing. In science, art, and 
industry real progress must be reported, and can this be so 
while that which is a combination of those great elements is 
receding? It is impossible. With a great and continuous 
“levelling upwards” in education, higher intellectual tastes 
and refined perceptions must be promoted ; and under these 
circumstances there can be no permanent decline in horticul¬ 
ture, but progress must continue, and there is every probability 
that it will be greater in the future than it has been in the 
past. Granted that “ bad times” is not an empty phrase, there 
have been times far worse; that “ low rents ” exist—there 
have been lower ; that “ depressed trade ” is not a vision— 
there has been far greater depression. These checks and 
changes are but little clouds in the nation’s life, which through 
all history have been periodically recorded, and, like comets, 
come and go, no one knows why nor whence, nor exactly 
what is their mission. So sure as the human frame has its 
ailments, so sure will there be recurring impediments to the 
smooth progress of that aggregation of individuals of which 
nations are made. These obstacles may be, and must be, to 
some calamitous ; and, on the other hand, they may be, as they 
have been, “blessings in disguise” as affecting the whole 
community. But admitting to the full all impediments, pro¬ 
gress in horticulture must still be reported, and that of a re¬ 
markable kind. Evidence of this we were about to adduce 
when the following letter came to hand from one of the most 
experienced, successful, and enlightened of British gardeners. 
Referring to the somewhat discouraging views that have been 
enunciated as to the past, present, and future of gardening, 
our correspondent observes :— 
There is, it is to be hoped, no necessity yet to sing dirges over 
the fortunes of our craft. Mutation to a great extent characterises 
all mundane affairs, and so do seasons of adversity ; but such con¬ 
ditions should never cause despondency and gloomy forebodings 
to spring from the mind, for they may in the long run result in 
good to the cause we all have so much at heart. 
Almost everything advances as do the tides—not by one con¬ 
tinuous and uninterrupted flow of progress without surges that 
seem to bode nothing but retrogression, and gardening cannot 
possibly be shielded from similar influences. 
Though I do not want hopefully to tell “ a too flattering tale ” 
of gardening, I think it has as yet kept step with the fortunes of 
old England, which have sometimes been chequered and uneven, 
but in spite of which progression of a very marked and substantial 
kind is the sum of its ups and downs. 
Agricultural depression has recently put a drag on the wheels of 
her twin sister horticulture, and it may be in some instances 
“reversed the engine.” But I am of the opinion that horticulture 
is not in such a bad way after all, and that “ its streams are yet 
fresh, and its sunshine bright ” when looked at from the stand¬ 
point of bygone experience. 
Nearly half a century has passed since the writer took to “ the 
spade ” as a means of livelihood. Not a very long time to look back, 
but long enough to enable him to see at the far end of the vista a 
very different condition of gardening from what we have now. 
Many things have changed, and many have been discovered since 
then. Taking the case of what I shall term the operative gar¬ 
dener first. His position fifty years ago was very different to what 
it is now. I never had more than 9s. per week as a journeyman 
in Scotland, and 13s. without lodgings in England, and I had the 
fortune to be employed in some of the best gardens on both sides 
the Tweed. Under gardeners are much better paid now, and, I 
think, not so hardworked. Head gardeners’ situations, which 
then yielded £45 and £50 per annum, have now risen to £70 and 
£80 ; and I know of several large places where the gardener’s 
emolument was but little over £100, whereas now it is up to £200. 
So much, then, for the gardener. 
As to gardening, it would take almost a volume to contrast its 
extent and condition half a century ago with the state and the 
dimensions it has now attained. Almost every old garden ha3 
widened and extended greatly ; and though at present we see 
some retrogressive steps in the case of gardens owned by those 
who derive their revenue from land exclusively, that does not 
prove that horticulture as a whole is not making progress. What 
of the retired merchant class, and those who are still actively car¬ 
rying on the wonderful commerce of the nation ? Why, where 
there was one garden owned by this class fifty years since there 
are fifty now. Then the shopkeeper, not to speak of the merchant 
prince, was content to reside above his shop or store, and was 
innocent of a garden. Now in thousands of cases they have their 
villas in the suburbs or right out in the country, have their gardens 
and glass houses, and their gardener or gardeners as the case may 
be. So that, although in some of the more pretentious gardens 
of the nobles and gentry we witness what it is to be hoped is but 
a temporary retrogression, the horticultural wave is to be seen 
going forward at a far greater number of points than where it is 
receding. Of course, it is very undesirable that the gardens of 
No. 131.—Yon. V., Third Series. 
N*. 1787—Tei. LXYII1.. Old Series. 
