June 28,18S3 ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 529 
atSM- 
28th 
Tn 
National Rose Society, Southampton. Richmond Shoiv. 
29th 
F 
Canterbury Rose Show. 
30th 
S 
Reigate Rose Show. West Kent Show. 
1st 
2nd 
SDN 
M 
6th Sunday after Trinity. 
3rd 
TO 
National Rose Society’s Show, South Kensington. 
4 th 
W 
Gardeners' Royal Benevolent Institution, Annual Dinner. 
MA.KING- MISTAKES. 
^^^^0 THING is more easy than to make 
mistakes in gardening. The best gar¬ 
deners of the day have committed many 
errors, though it is not quite customary 
to own to them. Mistakes are made in 
heating, watering, ventilating, potting, 
pruning, digging, manuring, sowing, and 
planting. Those persons are wise who 
recognise their blunders, remember them, even 
write them down, forming a chart, as it were, 
with the hidden rocks marked by beacon lights 
to guide safely along in the future. 
But if gardeners make mistakes employers are not 
always free from errors; and while it is not im¬ 
probable that a hard master has more than once 
blighted the prospects of a good man, it is very 
certain that numbers of good masters have been 
driven to lose interest in their gardens by the im¬ 
prudence of their gardeners. This is the greatest, 
mistake of all that a gardener can make. 
A tolerably long experience with gardeners and 
owners of gardens enables me to say positively that 
many gentlemen who are accused of being hard and 
unreasonable are in reality often very forbearing. 
When a master wants one thing and a man another, 
and the master yields, does he not make a sacrifice; 
yea, as great a sacrifice as a gardener does when a 
young man under him does not comply cheerfully with 
his wishes, and yet is kept in the hope that he may 
eventually become more tractable ? It must never be 
forgotten that he who bears the cost of a garden has 
an undoubted right to do what a gardener may deem 
wrong. A plant may be grown for twelve months, 
be watched, tended, and cherished by a gardener, then 
in a moment may be spoiled by having its head cut 
off, because the flower would be particularly cherished 
as cut and placed on the table of the owner. There it 
would give satisfaction, but the plant itself might not 
be cared for, except for the purpose of producing other 
flowers for cutting in the same manner. In such a 
case it is to the gardener’s own interest to grow such 
flowers and cut them cheerfully. A gardener who 
readily, and, as a rule, complies with what he occa¬ 
sionally feels is an unreasonable request, will be far 
more likely to be allowed to gratify his own desire in a 
special matter than will a man who gives grudgingly 
what an owner wants of his own. 
I could tell of a gardener who for years had his own 
way, growing what he liked, and only cutting what he 
wished in a beautiful garden (which the owner did not 
much enjoy, because he felt as if it was not quite his 
own), now in a very different position. The estate 
changed owners, and the new proprietor took a fancy for 
Orchids, but in this particular way—that immediately 
a flower or spike expanded it was to be cut, no matter 
what it was, and sent into the owner’s room. It was, 
moreover, the same with all other flowers ; every flower 
had to be cut daily, whether it spoiled the look of the 
plant or not. The gardener did not take kindly to the 
change, and felt and said he could “ never live with a 
gentleman so unreasonable.” He wisely, however, hesi¬ 
tated in relinquishing a not laborious charge, with £100 
a year and the usual privileges. He made, indeed, a mis¬ 
take in prejudging a gentleman whom he now considers 
amongst the most reasonable of employers. The gar¬ 
dener gradually fell into the way of cutting the flowers, 
which was at one time almost as painful to him as 
cutting himself, but seeing the pleasure they gave to 
the owner, who in that form appreciated them so highly, 
he (the gardener) at length came to have pleasure in 
doing that which previously gave him pain. He cuts 
choice flowers now with alacrity, and the more he has 
the greater he enjoys the work, because he now says 
the “ dear old man almost worships them.” In return 
for this cheerful compliance with the wishes of an 
“ unreasonable” master, this gardener, who so nearly 
made an almost fatal mistake, has had instead £50 a 
year added to his salary and was never before so com¬ 
fortable as he is now. If the owner w T anted a Vine cut 
down and taken in to show the crop of Grapes this 
happy gardener would now cut it down in a moment 
without any compunction, with perhaps a remark, “ It 
is his Vine, not mine, let him have it.” 
I could tell of another gardener, whose life is practi¬ 
cally that of a gentleman, whose employer certainly 
ranks amongst the most influential half a dozen 
individuals in the realm, who attributes all the com¬ 
fort he enjoys, and the confidence of the employer he 
serves, to sinking altogether his own fancy and com¬ 
mencing to do what he had been all his life taught to 
be unreasonable. He enjoys the garden in his charge, 
because its owner has been led to enjoy it also, instead 
of having been alienated from it by a different course 
of conduct on the part of his gardener—a “ standing 
up ” as he might mistakenly have called it for the 
“ dignity of the profession,” which, being interpreted, 
means the dignity of nonsense and the indignity of 
himself. 
Yet another example I could adduce. A nobleman, 
the owner of one of the most princely estates in the 
kingdom, engaged a gardener. This gardener, on 
hearing that his new employer was most unreasonable, 
hard to please, and that “ nobody ever stopped with 
him,” was on the point of cancelling his engagement, 
and would, I believe, have done so had it not been for 
a good adviser, who, knowing the man’s tact and 
ability, urged him to give the place a trial. On reflec¬ 
tion he said, “I will, I will try and manage Lord X. for 
a year, and if I succeed in that I know I can manage his 
garden.” That was a wise resolve. He ascsrtained 
the peculiar requirements of this “ unreasonable ” 
family, and now there are probably few men more com¬ 
fortable and more safely established than my friend is 
in his splendid charge. 
I have given instances of mistakes that have 
fortunately been averted. It would be easy to give 
more that have been committed of individuals resign 
ing, because they could not bend to an employer’s wish. 
No. 157 —Vol. VI., Third Series. 
No. 1813 .—Vol. LXIX., Old Series. 
