434 
MODERN IMPROVEMENTS OF GARDENING. 
other botanical writers of the continent? No; I, for one, shall not 
easily surrender what I have studied from my youth up.” And so 
doggedly sincere was Miller in his opposition to the new system, that 
it is said he could not behave with common civility to its ingenious 
author, when he visited the Chelsea garden. Miller, however, had no 
competitor in his own time, and was always considered a first-rate 
authority on everything relative to gardening; his advice, whether 
oral or written, formed the character of many of his pupils, as well as of 
those who studied the principles and rules set forth in his dictionary. 
Aiton, Forsyth, Hitt, Speedily, and several others, were eminent 
off-sets from the Millerian school in England. These were closely 
followed by a crop of intelligent suckers, as Learmont, Livingstone, 
Maur, Kyle, Macnaughten, Nicol, and many others in Scotland and 
Ireland. These became distinguished leaders, and as several of them 
were also writers, their improve practices were soon widely diffused; 
and as at that time the business was very much encouraged by the 
nobility and gentry of the land, gardening advanced with rapid strides. 
The preceptal rules and practical examples of these horticultural 
Gamaliels were quickly disseminated among the numerous class of 
young men who were initiated under them; and what with close 
application and love of their business, precocious adepts sprung up 
with a few years of labour and study, possessed of as large a stock of 
practical knowledge as before that time required a long life of experi¬ 
ence to attain. Many individuals, who were the pupils of the above 
named eminent men, lately filled, or continue to fill, the first situations 
in Britain, and to them, as well as their teachers, may be attributed 
the late and present improvements in the business. 
Nor are the facilities for the qualification of young gardeners fallen 
off, but rather increased. The numerous periodicals and other publi¬ 
cations on the subject have certainly very much advanced the profes¬ 
sion, as well as the intellectual accomplishments of a great majority of 
its professors. All, or at least a great part, of the best practices are 
detailed in those publications, so that the simplest tyro, if he can but 
read, becomes very early in life a man of science. Often may these 
younkers be heard, in the dusty region of a stock-hole, or in the gloom 
of a back-shed, expatiating on the mysteries of vegetable phenomena, 
or on the most occult points of vegetable development, and with a volu¬ 
bility and correctness which even the great Miller himself, were he 
alive, would be delighted to hear. And what is more, there is scarcely 
a stripling among them who, if asked, could not readily"write, by the 
faint glimmer of a farthing rush-light, a dissertation on any point of 
practice, or on any branch of horticultural knowledge. 
