February 9, 1838 ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
99 
0 one can follow the career of a gardener for thirty or forty 
3 'ears without becoming acquainted with the educational status 
of a great number of fellow workers in the craft. Letters of various 
kinds from various men are received during that time, all indicating 
the capacity of the writers as correspondents. In several instances 
marked improvement will be apparent after a lapse of years, show¬ 
ing plainly the results of persevering endeavour in the important 
work of self-improvement ; but in many others there is no 
appreciable advance on the original low standard of bad writing, 
bad spelling, and bad grammar. It is lamentable that this should 
be so, but it is a fact, and it is better, in the true interests of the 
gardening community, that this should be brought to the surface 
than ignored as if there were no grounds for the allegation. 
That there are well educated men in the ranks of British 
gardeners goes without saying, and not a few of them have acquired 
their attainments mainly by their own exertions after their short 
term of schoolboy life ceased ; and this fact renders it the less 
excusable on the part of others whose lethargy or misapplied time 
have unfortunately dragged down the average educational standard 
of gardeners to such a low level. It is nothing less than pitiable 
that more pains are not taken by illiterate men who have managed 
to get enrolled in the ranks of professional gardeners to improve 
themselves in writing and plain education. Not in penmanship 
■alone ai’e so many deficient, for that is perhaps the smallest 
fault, but carelessness, not to say slovenliness, of expression and 
outrages in spelling are more to be deplored. How so many men 
of good appearance and general conduct fail to see their short- 
■comings in the very rudiments of education is almost astounding. 
Zllany readers of these lines must have heard expressions of sur¬ 
prise from educated persons that gardeners with whom they have 
■come in contact—men of fair competency in their calling, respect¬ 
ful in demeanour, and some of them almost dandies in appearance — 
■should betray their scholastic ignorance in a five minutes’ conver¬ 
sation ; but when this is stereotyped on paper in the form of letters 
do friends or employers, orders to seedsmen and nurserymen, or in 
the naming of flowers or other exhibits at shows, the illiteracy is 
intensified, and in far too many instances deplorable. 
The most common excuse on the part of men of “no education ” 
is that it is “ not their fault, as they had no schooling.” It is 
certainly not the fault of a man that his parents could not, or did 
not, send him to school when he was a boy ; but it is his fault 
most decidedly that he did not himself strive in advancing youth 
and early manhood to spell correctly and write an intelligent letter ; 
and there is positively no excuse for exhibitors at shows making 
such flagrant and often ludicrous blunders in nomenclature as are 
so obtrusive and humiliating, for the correct spelling of every name 
is to be found in catalogues. These names are read over and over 
again in print, yet when written down are tortured into something 
of which every gardener ought to be ashamed. 
It is quite true that such lazily illiterate men seldom rise to good 
positions. One here and there may get hoisted above his fellows 
by a fluke, but in fair open competition he must be left at the 
bottom of the ladder to grovel along as best he can, grumbling out 
a lifetime because his ‘ anuiiies are not recognised, for the fact 
cannot be disguised that iliose who know the least think the most 
of themselves. Many a valuable appointment has been lost by the 
No. 398.—Yon. XVI., Third Series. 
misspelt ill-expressed letters of applicants, and many a one gained 
because of the intelligence displayed by candidates seeking to fill 
good vacancies in the gardening world. 
It is a rule with gentlemen who advertise for gardeners to first 
cast aside all letters that are obviously written by men who have 
made no serious endeavour to educate themselves ; and it is a rule 
with nurserymen, too, and other persons who are applied to to 
supply gardeners, to send the best educated men and otherwise 
qualified to the best places. This is only natural and right— 
natural because the patron of a gardener will not incur the risk of 
receiving a notification of this kind from a customer or friend— 
“ William Hobbs you sent me is a good worker, but very ignorant; 
he cannot write a label fit to be seen, much less a letter to me when 
I am from home and right, because the man who strives the 
most earnestly to fit himself in every way for an important charge 
is the most deserving of advancement; and, moreover, the gardener 
who educates himself, as not a few of the best have done in 
grammar, spelling, composition, and other necessary attainments, 
cannot do so without acquiring information bearing directly on his 
calling, for when once a course of evening improvement is reso¬ 
lutely pursued the mind is led on step by step from subject to 
subject, never resting content but ever searching for knowledge, 
and its possessor of necessity becomes a better gardener and more 
accomplished man. Much more might be said on this subject, and 
perhaps will be said by some well qualified correspondent?, for it is 
undoubtelly important, and for various reasons has scarcely had 
the prominence accorded to it that it fairly demands.—Ex- 
l’ERIEXTI.\ DOCE-r. 
CROPS THAT PAY. 
I ii.wi; said IMushrooms pay, and advised the preparation of the 
manure and the making of beds at once. I did so because I prefer 
to obtain manure after Christmas rather than earlier in the season, 
then make the bods as early as the material can be prepared. I 
have an object in this, and it may be of advantage to others, and 
that is the reason I allude to this crop again. There is a tendency 
in the neighbourhood of towns to use “ green food ” for horses 
during the summer, and often weU on into the autumn, and the 
manure from horses fed on this material takes too much sweetening 
to be agreeable, or to be certain that the crop is going to be a 
success instead of a failure. Manure that is offensive when the 
beds are made up is not in the condition in which the spawn will 
run. The man who can make a good hotbed can make Mushroom 
beds from which a paying crop can be obtained. Selfishness must 
be abandoned, for it is the reverse of economy to make the beds 
too small, tliinking of saving outlay in manure by so doing. Such 
beds cool too quickly, which often means failure. On the other 
hand they must not be too large, thinking to snatch a “ big ” yield 
with but little trouble, for instead of the crop paying it may fail. 
Extra large beds (I mean too wide and too high ; they can be as 
long as the cultivator wishes) often heat too violently and kill the 
spawn. 
I wish to make my notes as seasonable as I can, and therefore 
wiU try to start with those that need first attention. “ Do Lettuces 
pay ? ” said a neighbouring farmer early last spring when I was busy 
putting out some thousands of young stui’dy plants ; “ Don’t they ? ” 
was the rejoinder. He watched them with evident interest, and I 
tried to induce him to tiy a few this year by detailing the method 
I was pursuing. But he has not done so, and I am afraid it is such 
“ dilly dallying ” that lands us in the deplorable condition I pointed 
out in my first article, and makes room for the foreigner to supply 
our markets. Early Lettuces, if well and quickly grown, are a 
v'ery remunerative crop. Bear in mind, intending growers, that 
Cabbage varieties only pay very early before Cos varieties find 
their way into the market. When once the Cos, or “ London 
Lettuce ” as it is called, is in, no matter where it is grown, finds its 
No. 2054.—VoL. LXXVIII., Old Series. 
