180 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
June 24. 
Ia aid of the dessert, Sir William Paxton furnished pine¬ 
apples, the largest weighing 0|lbs., the grapes were from the 
gardens of the Marquis of Aylesbury and the Marquis of 
Lansdowne. 
The usual loyal toasts having been given and responded to, 
I The Chairman said—I have now to offer you a toast which 
j expresses our interest in, and our cordial good wishes for, 
the institution in whose behalf we have met here to-day 
(cheers). For three times three years it has been strength¬ 
ened and encouraged by assemblies like these, and with 
three times three cheers we will shortly, if you please, urge 
it onwards in its prosperous career (loud cheers). While 
occupying this place, I feel myself somewhat like a counsel 
for a plaintiff, with nobody on the other side (cheers and 
laughter); but although the society had numbered 09 times 
nine instead of three times three years, I must have troubled 
you with a few facts from the very short brief with which I 
have been provided. That desperate old gardener , Time, 
does so transplant and remove; and, besides, it is to be 
hoped that the number of our friends does so augment with 
the ending years, that it becomes absolutely necessary, even 
in a company like this, to recapitulate the merits of my case. : 
The institution was founded in 1838; and during the first 
five years of its existence, it appears to have been not par¬ 
ticularly robust. It seems to have been placed in rather a 
shady position (cheers), and, after its planting, to have [ 
received somewhat more than its needful allowance of cold 
water (cheers and laughter). In 1848, I believe, it was re¬ 
moved to a more sunny situation; and, being grafted upon a 
newer and more energetic stock, began to blossom, became 
a sturdy and healthy tree, and now, under the shelter of its 
extended branches, 35 old gardeners daily assemble (cheers). 
It is to be particularly observed, in respect to this institu¬ 
tion, that, unlike old foundations (of which I wish I coukl 
say as much), what it is in name it is in fact, and the 
class for whose benefit it purports to be designed have 
the full and entire advantage of it (cheers). All the 
pensioners on its list are veritable gardeners, or the wives 
of gardeners; and, besides, it has on its own books this 
excellent rule :—“Any gardener who has subscribed for 15 
years, and has complied with the rules, and falls into dis¬ 
tress, may, if he please, be placed on the pension list without 
solicitation, without canvas, without election, as his inde¬ 
pendent right (loud cheers). I lay great stress on this 
honourable characteristic, because I always hold that the 
main principle of every philanthropic society should be to 
help those who help themselves, and help others; also to 
merge all considerations of our own patronage, and of our j 
own bustling importance in the sacred duty of relieving such 
persons when they fall into affliction, with the utmost pos¬ 
sible delicacy, and without the least chance of carrying a 
pang to their hearts, or of bringing a blush into their honest 
cheeks (loud cheers). That the society’s pensioners do not | 
become such, so long as they are able to perform the duty of 
supporting themselves, is evident, from the fact that the 
average age of the pensioners on this list is 77 years (cheers). 
That they are not wastefully relieved—though what is little 
to a society is much to them—is shown by the whole sum 
expended on relief being only T500 a-year. That no narrow 
confines are favoured in the selection of pensioners will be 
cleai', when I tell you that they come from all parts of 
England—east, west, north, and south (cheers). That the 
expenses of offices and management are not disproportion¬ 
ate to the society’s income is obvious, by their being defrayed 
by the annual subscriptions and the interest of the funded 
stock, which is now £2,700, and which, after this evening’s 
proceedings, I trust will be increased to .3,000 guineas (loud 
cheers). Such, gentlemen, is the institution for which I 
now appeal to you for support. I appeal first, and particu¬ 
larly to the employers and employed amongst the class from 
which our pensioners are taken, and also to the public of all 
degrees and of all ranks. And to the latter I shall not address 
myself in vain for a society which has for its president a 
nobleman of the most generous and munificent spirit in this 
land (the Duke of Devonshire), whose whole possessions, 
from end to end, are a garden of taste and beauty, and 
whose gardener's laurels are famous through the world (loud 
and long continued cheering). I notice, with great pleasure, 
in the fist of vice-presidents, the names of noblemen and gen¬ 
tlemen of great influence and station (cheers). I am also 
particularly struck, on looking through the pages of the 1 
report, to see the number of nurserymen and seedsmen who 
contribute to the funds, and the handsome sums written 
opposite their names (cheers). It is a worthy and generous 
example to those gardeners who may become masters them¬ 
selves ; and I really hope that the clay will come when every 
decent gardener in England will regard this society as a 
part of his calling—(cheers)—and that, if he thinks he . 
never may want its aid himself, he will still regard it as a 
duty to belong to it, because others may, and indeed always 
will, want its cherishing assistance (cheers). Gardeners 
there are by scores, I fear, who know gold and silver more 
as the colours of fruit and flowers than as coins in their own 
pockets, and exposure to all weathers, and all temperatures, 
render them particularly liable to infirmity when old age 
comes on (cheers). To gardeners, of all men, from their 
continual observations of the mutations of nature, the 
changing seasons, the shortening days, the falling leaf, 
the withering tree, all suggest lessons of worldly, prudent, 
and Christian kindness (cheers). But I appeal to all here, 
and all not here, who are anything but gardeners, except 
as we trace in a direct line from the gardener, Adam, and 
his wife—(cheers)—on behalf of this institution. After all, 
the universality which awaits every exertion of the gar¬ 
dener’s skill is one of the characteristics of this pursuit 
which ought to make it patronised by everybody. If an 
improvement be made by the Queen, by my lord, by my 
lady, or by Sir John, it is not unreasonable to suppose that 
it will be quickly down to the costermonger in our streets 
(loud cheers and laughter). If it be no heresy to say 
so, I think the market-gardeners of this metropolis are 
teaching lessons of practical wisdom to the farmers of 
this day (cheers). In the colour of a flower there cannot 
be, in its very nature, anything very exclusive or very 
selfish; and the wind that to-day blows the scent of the 
honeysuckle over the cottager’s porch to the portico of the 
squire’s hall, biings to-morrow the rarer, hut not richer and 
sweeter, odours from his expensive gardens to the lowly 
cottage (cheers). The sun, which shines alike upon the 
just and the unjust, sheds its life-giving beams also alike 
upon the poor man’s garden and that of the rich man— 
communicating to neither any exclusive delights (cheers). 
We often hear of gentlemen spending large sums of money 
in developing a flower, or in deepening a colour. The im¬ 
provement in a short time becomes general, and thus that 
gentleman’s gardener is, in short, my gardener, and every¬ 
body’s else (a laugh). Speaking as a man acquainted with 
some books, I have found that in flowers our poets have 
found their most beautiful illustrations, and most true as 
well as most fanciful sentiments. The garden has been to 
them a book of inspiration. It is a book, too, which, when 
we see it lying at the labourer’s door, tells us that that la¬ 
bourer is a happier and a better man, for it is not too 
much to say that gardening is invariably connected with 
peace and happiness. Gardeners are associated in our 
minds with all countries, and all degrees of men, and with 
all periods of time. We know that painters, and sculptors, 
and statesmen, and men of war, and men who have agreed 
in nothing else, have agreed, in all ages, to delight in 
gardens. We know that the most ancient people of the 
earth had gardens; and that where nothing but heaps of 
sand are now found, and arid desolation now reigns, gardens 
once smiled, and the gorgeous blossoms of the east shed 
their fragrance on places which would have been long ago 
forgotten, but for the ruined temples which, in those distant 
ages, stood in their gardens (cheers). Me know that the 1 
ancients wore crowns of flowers ; and the laurels and the 
bays have stimulated many a noble heart to deeds of heroism 
and virtue (cheers). We know that, in China, hundreds of 
acres of gardens float about the rivers; and, indeed, in all 
countries gardening is the favourite recreation of the people 
(cheers). In this country its love is deeply implanted in 
the breasts of everybody. We see the weaver striving for 
a pigmy garden on his house-top—we see the poor citizen 1 
wrestling with the smoke for his little bower of scarlet 
runners—we know how very many, who have no scrap of 
land to call their own, and will never have until they lie 
their length within the ground, and have past for ever the 
portals of life, still cultivate their favourite flowers (cheers) 
—we know that in factories and workshops we may find 
