12 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ January 3, 1889. 
europreus, Privet, &c. Conspicuous around the handle and at the side 
are the twining branches of the well known Black Bryony of the hedge¬ 
rows, Tamus communis, with its bright glossy' scarlet berries. The 
half-open pods of seed of the wild Iris, showing its bright berries, had a 
pretty effect relieved with the golden fronds of the bracken. These with 
the light Grasses were used with great taste and judgment. The whole 
would form a good ornament for the hall or reception room. The 
handle of the basket is about 3 feet high, and the body about 2 feet 
across.—C. 0. 
THE DUTIES OF THE EMPLOYER TO HIS GARDENER. 
[It will be remembered that last year the Notts Horticultural and 
Botanical Society offered prizes for the best essay on the “ Duties of a 
Gardener to his Employer,” and the most successful one, by Mr. N. 
Pownall, was published, in this Journal on page 375, May 10th, 1888. 
In the present year prizes were again offered for the best essays, this 
time on “ The Duties of the Employer to his Gardener,” the chief 
honour being won by Mr. J. H. Walker, gardener to John Wesley 
Lewis, Esq., Hardwick House, Nottingham, for the following.] 
In discussing a question of so much importance as the one we are 
Invited to express an opinion upon, it should be borne in mind at the 
outset that we are not speaking in any antagonistic spirit towards 
■employers. I will therefore endeavour to give my humble opinion upon 
what I consider to be the primary duties of the employer to his 
gardener; but we cannot disguise the fact that gardening has to be 
conducted under such widely different circumstances to suit the require¬ 
ments of different employers and different garden establishments, that 
it would be absurd to suppose that any individual case quoted could be 
considered to represent the true position and relationship in which 
gardeners as a class stand to their employers. 
I have read and heard a great deal about what men should all do to 
make themselves desirable gardeners, but of what men should do to 
make themselves desirable employers I never saw anything in print or 
even heard it intimated in any remarks made upon the state and 
prospect of horticulture. My contention is that the employer who 
wishes to secure a respectable and intelligent man’s faithful services 
must be both able and willing to treat such a man in a manner 
calculated to win his attachment. There are to be found numbers of 
persons who are the most considerate of masters and whose names will 
always be received with admiration and respect ; but unfortunately 
there are also many employers who are only gentlemen by name, and 
whose gardeners are their superiors in every respect—by birth, by 
education, by manners, by industry, by skill, and in every other way 
with the exception of money. It is employers of this class who are the 
most difficult to reason with, consequently it shall be this kind of 
employer to whom I will shortly direct your attention and endeavour to 
point out his duties to his gardener. 
The wage question will, I have no doubt, be brought prominently 
before you, but I will not indulge in any speculative theories 
instigated for raising the wage rate of gardeners. This cannot be 
effected by any artificial means whatever. The great question of supply 
and demand can alone regulate this ; and if it could be considered 
within the bounds of this subject I should feel disposed to severely 
criticise the conduct of all the noblemen in the country for permitting 
their head gardeners to flood their gardens with young gardeners to do 
the work of common labourers. So long as young men are trained as 
gardeners in the present liberal manner, and in far greater numbers 
than vacancies can possibly occur for them to fill, so long will the wage 
rate of gardeners remain as it is, or even fall lower. It is not the habit 
of even our merchant princes to pay more than the market value of 
anything, whether it is skilled or unskilled labour, or any material 
commodity. The gardener himself acts on exactly the same principle, 
for none of us will give a shilling for a knife, no matter how good it 
may be, if we can get one of the same quality for sixpence. Therefore 
as large employers of garden labour are generally desirous to regulate 
the quantity of such labour, it is not only the duty of the employer to 
his gardener but to an honourable profession to also regulate the 
quality of it. 
The wage question is an important one, and I often wish employers 
would give it more serious consideration. They would find that the 
average gardener is not equally remunerated with the average mechanic, 
and that not a few of the best and most accomplished of gardeners 
cannot, even by the exercise of habits of frugality, do more than 
maintain themselves and families in a state of respectability. Some, I 
am aware, are so circumstanced that they can provide for the comforts 
•that they have a right to enjoy in the evening of life ; but the vast 
majority, the thousands of industrious men, are not able by their own 
efforts to make any adequate provision for old age. Therefore I main¬ 
tain that it is the duty of the employer to his gardener to recognise this 
fact, and to cheerfully pay him for his worth, and to co-operate with 
him in every possible way with the object of effecting that which it is 
so desirable to attain—a means of livelihood when he can no longer 
labour, or for those who are dear to him who may be left helpless in. 
the world. 
Let me now call your attention to the matter of gardeners’ dwellings, 
which are one of the chief means by which he obtains that small share 
of domestic happiness which generally falls to his lot. Much has been 
done of late years by many employers to improve the dwellings of both 
head and under gardeners, but much still remains to be done in the 
same direction. It is deplorable to find in many large establishments 
where vast sums of money are annually spent upon the keeping and 
breeding of racehorses, the preservation of valuable art treasures, the 
carrying out of fox-hunting, and other of life’s luxuries, the dilapidated 
state in which many of those rooms commonly known as bothies, and 
which form the homes of so many young gardeners, are to be found, 
and which in many cases were never intended for man’s comfort. I 
have shared the pleasures as well as the miseries of places which were a 
disgrace to the estates of English peers ; and although we have seen 
merry gatherings in the tumble-down abode, happy little parties at 
which the flute and an extemporised tambourine supplied by the bottom 
of an old watering pot, brought forth the strains by which the dances 
of England, Ireland, and Scotland were executed with more than the 
usual energy ; yet the employer must never forget that it is one of his 
primary duties to his gardener to provide him with a healthy and decent 
habitation, and that the rougher that habitation is the rougher the 
amusements of its inmates; and, on the contrary, the more refined its 
arrangement so in proportion is the improvement in the habits of its 
occupants. 
One more question arises. It has been said by some that gardeners 
object to their employers going into their gardens and picking flowers 
and fruit. Now, speaking from experience, I never had an employer 
who once came into the garden and picked anything beyond the most 
paltry things without either telling me he had done so, or leaving word 
to that effect by someone in charge. I consider it impossible for any of 
them to have supposed that I should have objected. I unhesitatingly 
affirm that no true lady or gentleman could, after due consideration, 
follow any other course than the one I have named. Where there are 
two or three persons concerned, I hold that it is nothing but right that 
a gardener who is responsible for choice flowers and fruit should know 
who gathers them. An employer may just as well allow the butler to 
make free with his cash box without liberty as to allow any person to 
go and pick Peaches and Grapes for which the gardener is held re¬ 
sponsible without a distinct arrangement and understanding. Robert 
Burns says— 
“ Yes, to be just, and kind, and wise, 
There solid self-eDjoyment lies." 
The question may next be asked, Is it one of the duties of the em¬ 
ployer to his gardener to permit him to exhibit for prizes at horticul¬ 
tural shows l I unhesitatingly say it is. On the broad question of 
exhibitions in general there can be but one opinion. The quality of 
every article, both of commerce and luxury, has most undoubtedly been 
improved by the exhibitions which have been so frequent of late years 
There is not within my knowledge a single commodity produced in any 
trade or in any art that has not felt the beneficial stimulus of public 
competition. Those employers who do not consider it to be their duty 
to their gardener to allow him to exhibit, generally base their objections 
upon very selfish grounds, the chief one being that the gardener does 
not study his employers, but his own interest, in the management of the 
garden. Well, if the employer has no idea of what his garden should 
produce, and does not notice his gardener’s actions, all I can say is he 
does not deserve to have a garden or gardener. I have a sufficiently 
high opinion of human nature to believe that most gardeners would 
study the interest of their employers, for if not they would be blind and 
foolish to their own interests. If men of such ability and education as 
the majority of gardeners are cannot be trusted in such a matter there 
is an end to all comfort for employers, and a cessation of the good 
understanding that ought to exist between man and man. 
I much regret that the question of politics should crop up in an 
article of this description, but I could not consider a subject of so much 
importance complete without some slight reference to the question. It 
is a common assumption that gardeners invariably take their political 
cues from employers, and I am exceedingly sorry to have to bring my 
mind to believe that such to a great extent is a fact. But whatever 
may be the political leaning of an employer, and however much there 
