February 14,1889. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
127 
the names of most of the best known gentlemen of Leicester and neigh¬ 
bourhood, was read over by the Secretary, who reported that many 
additions had been made to this list since the last Show. 
The officers and Committee for the coming season were elected, and 
it was decided to secure a better room in which to hold the next Show, 
and also to somewhat enlarge the schedule of prizes by the addition of 
groups arranged for effect, &e. 
On Thursday last, February 7th, the new Committee held its first 
meeting at the above rooms. The Hon. Secretary read the terms upon 
which the Temperance Hall could be obtained in which to hold the 
next Show, and it was unanimously decided that such should be engaged, 
and that the Show be held therein on Friday and Saturday, November 
15th and 10th. The schedule was then proceeded with and completed, 
several most important additions being made, the principal being an 
open class for forty-eight cut blooms with a first prize of £10, and a 
class for a large group of Chrysanthemums arranged for effect. 
THE N.C.S. STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTS. 
1 notice in your issue of the 7th inst., under the heading “ Re¬ 
ceipts,” that the Sheffield and Hallamshire Gardeners’ Mutual Improve¬ 
ment Society is credited with having paid £102 9s. I rather doubt 
the payment, especially since I, as Secretary to the Sheffield and West 
Riding Chrysanthemum Society, hold receipts for a like sum. It is 
also worthy of note that the Hallamshire Society is not affiliated to 
the N.C.S. I think it is the duty of the compiler of the accounts to 
explain the matter, and at least to give credit to the Society from 
whom the s mount has been obtained.— J. W. Jarvis, Sheffield. 
In the financial statement recently presented to the members of the 
N. C. Society, I recorded £102 9s. as having been received from the 
Sheffield and Hallamshire Society. This is my clerical error. It should 
have been the Sheffield and West Riding Chrysanthemum Society.— 
William Holmes. 
GARDENING PAST AND PRESENT. 
The following passage from your last week’s leader on this subject 
sufficiently expresses the situation, and the condition of gardening in 
private places at the present time :—“ I do not recollect a time,and many 
experienced men say the same, when agood man had so much difficulty in 
securing a good situation. The market is crowded, and many are willing 
to accept terms less than able men expect and ask for, and the latter are 
elbowed to one side.” Experience in every industry has shown that 
reduced wages means less work—less demand for labour, and reduced 
capital on the part of the employer of labour. A good wage for a good 
servant is a good maxim, but it has only a relative significance. If you 
apply the argument to a gentleman in search of a gardener, you are apt 
to be told, as the writer was told not long since by the owner of a large 
garden to whom a man had been recommended, that it was ‘‘all true 
enough, but he could not afford to pay for a first class man.” I give you 
the words. Besides, gentlemen know well enough that, when so many 
good men are out of situations they will be compelled to accept lower 
wages, and they are doing so. True, horticulture is more widely 
•‘diffused” nowadays among merchants and the like, but that has not 
improved the gardeners’ position very much, if what your correspondent 
says is true. 
I may be wrong, but I do not anticipate that kitchen gardening and 
fruit culture in “ private gardens” will ever again be what it has been 
in the past. Most of us who can look back for forty or fifty years can 
remember when, if a gentleman did not grow his own fruit and vege¬ 
tables, he could not have had a supply at all ; but steamboats, railways, 
and telegraphs have altered all that, and both can now be had promptly 
in the most remote spots. Such are the facilities in this respect, that 
owners of private establishments are realising that the comparatively 
fitful supplies they require can be had from the “ stores” almost as good, 
and in some things of better quality and cheaper than they can produce 
themselves. I heard, not long since, of a noble patron of horti¬ 
culture saying that he had come to think there was after all “ no garden 
like Covent Garden.” This applies principally to such produce as 
early vegetables, such as Potatoes, Asparagus, Cauliflower, Lettuce, and 
other kinds, and to fruit like Apples, Pears, Grapes, Pines, and such like. 
In almost all large private mansions large quantities of fruit and vege¬ 
tables have always been purchased during the London season, owing to 
the home supplies not being sufficient or ready at the time they were 
wanted, and what is taking place now is only an extension of the prac¬ 
tice which is extremely likely to continue. 
If any gardener over a large kitchen and fruit garden will just for 
one year or season take stock of the supplies actually consumed at his 
employer’s table and compare it with the fitful gluts and blanks apt to 
occur in the best managed garden, he will be driven to the conclusion 
that so far as expense and labour is concerned “ Covent Garden is the 
best garden,” as only such things are ordered as are required, and the 
waste is not nearly so much. The supplies from the home garden are 
provided, as a rule, on a prodigal scale to please cooks, house stewards, 
and others, no correct debtor and creditor’s account being kept against 
them ; but when these persons have to be provided from the shop and 
their accounts have to be passed and paid through the usual channels, 
supervision comes in, and a corresponding change is the result. I am 
not advocating one plan or the other, but only trying to give an idea of 
the position of affairs. I doubt very much if ever as many big kitchen 
gardens with their hundreds of yards of walls will be made again in 
this country. I look forward to flower gardening expanding and im¬ 
proving according to the times, but in other blanches the gardener will, 
I suspect, have to change his tactics and adapt his vegetable and fruit 
supplies to the altered conditions of the period. I am not speaking of 
those who pursue fruit culture as a hobby, regardless of expense, but 
of those who aim at making their garden remunerative, or at least 
compensating, like other departments of their estate. 
I endorse all your correspondent says about estate agents and the 
losses sustained by their employers through their ignorance of practical 
matters. It is grievous to witness the losses sustained in this way in 
many cases, but necessity is compelling landowners to look into their 
affairs much more closely than they have ever done before, and the 
result will be disastrous to lawyers, office agents, and their nominees, or 
I am much mistaken. Better men will be wanted by-and-by. I would 
strongly recommend young gardeners to make their horticultural 
grounding a basis for as good a knowledge of general estate work 
as they possibly can, and their opportunities in that way are not far 
to seek. If they can in addition procure a season at some agricultural 
college or school from which they can have certificate so much the 
better. 
I do not think the reductions taking place constantly in large 
gardens can fairly be put down to the “ follow my leader ” excuse, for 
we all know how much the land interest has depreciated of late years, 
and incomes in proportion. Journeymen’s wages have not decreased to 
nearly the extent as head gardeners’ salaries, but garden staffs have 
been reduced in number almost everywhere, and in not a few notable 
cases glass erections have been demolished when it became a question of 
repairing them or re-erecting new onps. I do not know of any head gar¬ 
deners’ salaries being reduced where the gardener has remained and 
otherwise conformed to the reductions and alterations otherwise, but it 
is a fact that many well paid gardeners have been dismissed for the 
sake of getting a cheaper and more accommodating man. I think this 
is a harsh proceeding. Only last week I met the head gardener from 
one of the largest places in England, which he had conducted with 
credit to himself and satisfaction to the owner for nearly ten years, 
and was greatly surprised by a letter he showed me, just received from 
his employer, requesting him to resign his situation in consequence of 
contemplated reductions, the same letter expressing confidence and 
goodwill to the man, and offering to recommend him to another situa¬ 
tion as soon as he could hear of one. I do not know a better gardener 
nor a better man than this, but he is now “ out,” or, at least, will be 
soon. - Gardener. 
GRANTS TO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 
I have frequently thought that the Royal Horticultural Society, 
to enable it to carry out its “experimental” programme satisfac¬ 
torily, should petition Parliament for the grant of a small sum to 
facilitate that object. It seems from an almost certain prospect 
that gardening in England is to become of increasing importance 
ymar by year, even although the great gardens of the land are grow 
ing less. The population of England increases, and more rapid 
communication with foreign parts leads to the well-being of the 
people generally. Through this almost every little populous centre 
in the country can boast of its flower show. Pleasant gatherings 
they usually are, in which all shades of politicians can agree freely ; 
but all who have any knowledge of carrying on flower shows know' 
that it is not easy to carry them on for any length of time success¬ 
fully. I have been for some years connected with a horticultural 
society in the provinces, which is well managed and in a good dis¬ 
trict. and £150 is paid at a show in prize money. To improve on 
this would necessitate more favourable circumstances, such as con¬ 
venience for running railway trips that would prove attractive to 
the people in the surrounding districts, and to provide some other 
special attractions. At the best, too, it is a little risky carry ing on 
flower shows successfully, as the bad luck of a few wet years would 
prove very disastrous in the receipts. Now, judging of horticul¬ 
tural societies in the provinces, the Royal in London cannot do 
much more than pay their prize money and other expenses at their 
exhibitions if they issue a liberal schedule. Then, how are they to 
carry on their useful experiments in trying different vegetables, or, 
indeed, their whole experimental work ? It seems to me rather 
unlikely from past experience that the income from the Fellows 
and other sources can do what ought to be done in a country like 
ours. Indeed, I feel quite certain that Parliament votes money for 
work of far less interest than the R.H.S. could perform. There 
may be some difficulty in applying for a given sum, but I do not 
thick that the subject would be impossible to carry out to the 
satisfaction of Government officials, and the Council of the R.H.S. 
would be a thoroughly competent body to insute the sum asked for 
being distributed properly according to requirements. I know that 
the United States Government grants handsome amounts for ex¬ 
perimental purposes. Of course, the R.H.S. can hardly be called 
educational directly, but indirectly in the respect to the trials of 
vegetables, &c., it is so, and it is only in that way many in the 
northern counties can deiive any profit. I am inclined to think 
