February 20, 1890. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
157 
materials is considered necessary by an expert to enable him to place 
<^'®tinct prizetakers on the board. He must grow 300 plants, 
loO in each section, in 9 and 10-inch pots, thus making it necessary to 
bave more than three pots for the production of every bloom that will 
be serviceable to him on show days, and surely the question may be 
^ t worth the candle.” Apart altogether from showing, 
and taking the whole blooms produced thus, it would be difficult to 
invent a more expensive system of culture, requiring, as it does, a very 
great amount of labour and the most constant and watchful care. I am 
not altogether a despiser of moderately large blooms in moderate 
numbers, because for certain purposes in connection with home decora- 
tion they are very useful, effective, and much appreciated. It may 
safely be asked if greater numbers of blooms of lesser sizes, and pro- 
■duced from a third or a sixth the number of pots, leave anything to be 
desired on the score of size, if indeed they be not more desirable than 
the monster blooms. That three or four times the number of blooms, 
ranging from 5 to 8 inches in diameter, can and are produced from the 
same sized pots is a well known fact, and surely such blooms are large 
s.ny purpose short of prizewinning according to present 
standard. For decorations in which numbers of small glasses holding 
needed, these larger than ordinary flowers are most 
etiective, and they can be produced in from nines to twelves and more 
in 9 and 10-inch pots with much less labour than one tall one producing 
three flowers necessitates. 
By adopting the cutting-down system—I believe first practised 
years since by Mr. John Laing of Stanstead Park Nurseries — 
a great number of what, in comparison with bush plants, may be 
termed extra-sized blooms are produced, with a vast deal less labour than 
IS involved in the production of prize blooms. It scarcely needs to be 
explained that nine or ten stems from 2 to 4 feet high with a single 
bloom on each in a 9-inch pot, or a greater number in a 10-inch pot, 
require much less labour than the same number of blooms on tall 
plants requiring four or five times the number of pots. In the last 
week of December I cut eighteen blooms of Ralph Brocklebank from 
a plant in a 10-inch pot, and most of the blooms were 8 inches in 
diameter, and I think such proportions are ample for any—too ample 
for most—purposes. 
_ Dwarf plants produced on the cutting-down system have many 
points to recommend them as compared with their lanky compeers, 
fhey can be made available for many purposes as plants for which tall 
ones are useless, and when stood on the floor of a house can be looked 
down on, enjoyed, and attended without any inconvenience. For a 
large family supply the proportion of such plants to bush plants need 
not be than a half or a third, simply because far more of a lesser 
size or blooms are required for family use. Even with the by no means 
very limited glass houses of this place the tall plants were found a sort 
ot white elephant. They had their blooms up among the wires of a 
house, in many cases needing steps for a 6-foot man to 
attend to the blooms and gather them ; whereas on the cutting-down 
principle the plants ranged on each side of an orchard house path one 
iiaa to reach down to them, and the character and beauty of the blooms 
could comfortably enjoyed, the most dwarf varieties being quite 
available and handy for bench decoration in show houses. 
In adopting this way it is best to strike cuttings in December or 
■d anuary in the usual cool way, putting one, two, or three cuttings in a 
pit according to the size of plant ultimately required. I think in a 
general rule the preferable W'ay is to have two or three in a pot, and 
■bloom them in 9 or 10-inch pots. They are grown on as vigorously as 
possible without being stopped till, here, near the end of May, and to 
WK succession of blooms all are cut down at the same time, 
wnen all are required at a given time, say the middle or end of Novem¬ 
ber, the late varieties should be cut down quite fourteen days earlier 
tlian the earlier blooming sorts. And when such sorts as Mons. H. 
dacotot, W. Holmes, Margot, Lady Selborne, &c., &c., are required to 
bloom along with the white and yellow Madame Desgranges, they shou'd 
be cut down about the 12th or 13th of May. But from our cut-down 
potion last season we had such as Fair Maid of Guernsey, Belle Paule, 
Eve, Mrs. Heale, Boule d’Or, Ralph Brocklebank, &c., as late as the very 
end of December. One of the chief points is to grow them with as 
much vigour as possible till cutting-down time, and so to preserve the 
leaves to their base, and in cutting down not to cut lower than where 
there are healthy leaves. Three, four, and five breaks may be preserved 
from each plant, saving of course the most robust. I am quite certain 
that those growers whose object is home decoration who have not yet 
tried this plan with a part of their plants will never give it up if they 
B. Thomson, Drumlanrig. 
THE PROFESSION OF GARDENING. 
[Read at the Cardiff Gardeners’ Improvement Society.] 
When we speak of a gardener we at once think of a private garden. 
We associate gardeners with a garden proper, and in my opinion they 
are only to be found in private establishments, large or small. True, 
nurseries, market gardens, places of public resort and recreation, and all 
the botanical gardens employ skilled men in their various depart¬ 
ments, but they are, I think, regarded more as specialists. Market 
gardeners are confined to vegetables and fruit; florists to flowers. 
Nurserymen, too, are becoming specialists. We find one celebrated for 
his Orchids, another for his Roses, others for Dahlias, Rhododendrons, 
Conifer®, &c. In our national garden at New there is the same tendency 
to sub-division. In nurseries and in all public gardens we find one set 
of men detailed with a foreman for this department, and another for 
that. 
In a short paper like this it would be impossible to do justice to the 
subject were I to attempt to deal with it from all points of view. I 
propose, therefore, to omit specialists from consideration, and to treat 
the matter from a private gardener’s point of view. Of these there are 
several grades, commencing with journeymen, foremen, single-handed 
gardeners, head working gardeners, and head gardeners. Briefly let me 
first indicate the start of gardeners, and the usual course of training 
they undergo during their probation. Many of the leading men to-day, 
could their history be known, started on their successful career as 
“ kitchen lads ”—that is, they were engaged by their respective head 
gardeners to carry the produce of the garden to the house, and to do 
any light work in the garden. These lads, starting as they do from the 
lowest rung in the ladder, have the principles and practice of the art 
more firmly engrafted in them than is the case with those who 
start as apprentices, and who often expect to go into the houses, 
and come out finished in two or three years. These lads are gradually 
trained to the discipline of a gardener’s life, and by the time they are 
permitted to enter the houses they are a long way ahead, and eager for 
further knowledge. In most cases they pay a premium and become 
apprentices, and rightly so, for I think the gardener should be com¬ 
pensated for his trouble, otherwise it would be better policy to engage 
competent journeymen to the exclusion of apprentices. In large places 
where valuable collections of plants are grown the raw apprentice is an 
exception. In such gardens they chiefly engage improvers. The differ¬ 
ence between an improver and an apprentice is but slight save in know¬ 
ledge ; but it is obvious that any gardener would prefer an improver 
who is willing to pay a premium, and who has had the benefit of two 
years’ training in a smaller place, to an apprentice who has nothing save 
his money to recommend him. 
For a premium of something like £5 per annum a lad can become 
an apprentice in a good place, and for a similar sum can enter into an 
establishment of the highest standing, where the opportunities for im¬ 
provement are well worthy of the outlay. This is the best course, but 
in general young men prefer to take a journeyman’s situation as 
soon as they have completed their apprenticeship. They do not remain 
long as journeymen, as a rule, before they consider themselves fit for 
foremen. This is a mistake. I would recommend a course of at least 
four years in this grade, one of which should be spent in a large nursery or 
at Kew, the remaining three years being divided equally in at least two 
good private places. Nothing is gained by remaining too long in one 
place, especially in the case of journeymen. 
The next grade, that of foreman, is one of much greater responsibility, 
and the journeyman who desires to pose as a first-class foreman should 
be well grounded in practice, as he will have to take the lead. In 
this position a few years spent in one or two good places should find 
him fit to take sole charge. Up to this the path is comparatively easy 
of ascent, but now the case is altered. 
Most gardeners starting on their career fix their eyes on a position 
as chief in some large establishment. This is' the goal of their ambition. 
But, alas ! for the vanity of human expectation, how often is it doomed 
to disappointment ? The supply being greater than the demand, it is a 
question of “ the survival of the fittest,” as to whom the best places fall; 
the rest struggle for positions of lesser note, from working head gar¬ 
deners down to single-handed men. They enter into competition even 
with those whose ideas of success never soared above a single-handed 
place, and who have circulated in such places their life through. It is 
certainly difficult for one who has been accustomed to all the resources 
of a large establishment to adapt himself so small places, but eventually 
they get accustomed to their position, their courage returns, and they 
recommence the ascent. The most resolute and determined have occa¬ 
sionally accomplished the feat of reaching the top in their second 
endeavour, but the majority resign themselves to inexorable circum¬ 
stances, and remain single-handed gardeners, or perhaps jobbing 
gardeneis, the rest of their life. 
A head gardener in a well-appointed place has a position of great 
responsibility ; but if he has properly fitted himself for the post the 
duties should sit lightly upon him. He can engage, for the various 
departments, competent and skilled foremen on whom he can rely ; he 
does no m.anual labour himself, but he sees that everything is done, and 
done well. With ample scope and assistance to display his talent in 
landscape gardening and general improvement, the surroundings of his 
employer’s residence should be a model of good taste and style, and 
