56 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 27. 
with enough of groundsel waiting the hoe before it seeded 
to make a little fortune for a hoy, could he pick it and 
carry it easily to the bird fanciers in London; wall-trees, 
all finished nailing, and a fine show of fruit; a fine range 
of glass, with Vines showing fruit, and Strawberries 
1 ripening; a good supply of plants, and a fine show of 
flowers in the conservatory, and then get into the con¬ 
fidence of the active, shrewd, intelligent, happy-looking 
young man who has the charge of this place, and you 
I will learn that with the assistance of a youth he 
manages all this himself, that he receives merely 
labourer’s wages, and yet has had the happy assurance 
to get a helpmate in these circumstances, on the 
principle that two are better than one; and yet, with 
this added responsibility, he talked as clieeringly of 
working on for the present, as his rough, stumpy hands 
demonstrated he had been doing, and of trusting as 
confidently that better times would come for him, as if 
he had been receiving three times his wages, which he 
richly deserved, and which, from the answers made to 
some enquiries from those who knew him, I do hope he 
will ere long receive. Such au instance of prudent, 
1 contented, hard-working, almost sleepless diligence, I 
had rarely met with, enough to scatter to the winds the 
mostly phantom troubles with which mauy people vex 
themselves and edify their neighbours. His content¬ 
ment was no matter of stoicism. In his position, it was 
more than proper that ho should see a firm footing for 
his right foot before he loosened the left. - 
CONCENTRATION OF AIM. 
The management of the above garden showed a fine 
example of this wisely directed. The first sight told 
you the kitchen-garden was either partially neglected, 
the fault of the gardener, or the result of a deficiency 
of labour power, which he could not overrule. If in 
that garden weeds were prevented seeding, no injurious 
consequences would ensue, at a future period, if not 
hard cropped, it would be all the better for the compara¬ 
tive fallow. But if wall trees and vineries were neglected 
even for a seasou, future years would suffer for the 
neglect. These were thoroughly attended to. Flowering 
plants, in the circumstances, might have followed in the 
wake of the kitchen-garden; but these, though of a 
common description, were gay and well-cared for. 
Many who could manage well miniature editions of 
Trentham and Chatsworth, would have scratched their 
heads in bewilderment when placed in such circum¬ 
stances. The great thing, whatever be neglected 
from the force of circumstances, is to see to those 
things most important in themselves, and most im¬ 
portant in the estimation of the proprietor, who has 
to pay for all. For want of attention to this simple 
principle, many young gardeners, and veterans too, 
so act as to produce first unpleasantness, then estrange¬ 
ment, then want of confidence, and, finally, the 
snapping of the ties of the employer and employed. 
Perhaps more than in any other profession, gardeners, 
as a class, are anxious to improve the places they 
superintend, and the baulking in any way of this 
honourable desire is, by many, looked upon as a griev¬ 
ance. The resources of their employers in wealth and 
power—their tastes and their willingness to lay out 
money in a certain direction, are with them minor 
considerations. Gardening being a chief thing in their 
estimation, they cannot perceive how their employers 
should think differently. A little reflection on the 
relative duties of the employed and the employer—a 
little concentration of aim by the former, to meet the 
peculiar wishes of the latter—would often oil waters, 
now scarcely ever without more movement than a gentle 
ripple. There are few old stagers but could clap their 
mental eye on scores of cases where unpleasantness 
was thus produced. For instance, there is Mr. A., a 
first rate gardener, living comfortably in his situation, 
and having every thing always in first-rate order. A 
reduction of labour power comes over the scene, and 
although he knows that plenty of crisp sweet vegetables 
is a matter of first import with the family, vegetables 
are comparatively neglected, that he may gratify his 
own fastidious eyes with a flower-garden well cropped, 
and a lawn without a daisy; though his employers see 
either merely by fits and starts during the season. 
Then there is a counterpart in Mr. B. ; he, too, must do 
the best he can with a reduction. He knows his em¬ 
ployers are particularly partial to the good manage¬ 
ment of a small flower-garden close to the house; 
employers who have ever treated him with kindness 
and respect; and, of all places, he fixes upon leaving 
several clumps in this flower-garden comparatively neg¬ 
lected, that the effects of the reduction may at once be 
seeu and felt, as if there was no other place where the 
change could be seen, and not valued a rush, because 
scarcely ever coming under their notice. If, for causes 
with which Mr. B. had nothing whatever to do, a 
reduction of labour power was deemed right and neces¬ 
sary, was it right, manly, or honourable in him, when 
he continued in his situation, thus to poke the results 
of that reduction before the eyes of his kind em¬ 
ployers, and in the most sensitive part, for the greatest 
space of the gardening season? If the many of my 
younger brethren who will read this will answer 
in the affirmative, then I own that I shall be dis¬ 
appointed ; but if they reply in the negative, and 
thus learn, in all such circumstances, to acquire concen¬ 
tration of purpose, and to act in unison with the wishes 
of their employers, many sources of uneasiness will be 
avoided, and 1 shall feel that this entrance into a 
comparatively neglected garden will have been useful 
to others as well as myself. 
SUBSTITUTES FOR POTS FOR BEDDING PLANTS. 
Our readers who can turn back to previous volumes 
will find many of these modes discussed, and among 
others the use of moss, as so largely employed by Mr. 
Ferguson for growing his cheap plants for the million. 
I myself have used moss largely, and with considerable 
success, as a very small proportion of my bedding plants 
are ever honoured with seeing a pot. Most of them are 
struck in borders or boxes; are kept in wooden boxes 
during the winter; and then those with little inclination 
to make fibres are taken separately in the end of March; 
a handful of light earth put about them, a little moss 
tied round it, placed in water, and set in borders and 
boxes to grow and harden. Those with abundance of 
fibry roots, such as the Calceolaria, are struck late in 
autumn, preserved over the winter, and planted out on 
a border, with protection at the end of March, and are 
lifted with balls, and transferred to the beds in May. 
I saw, the other day, not a new substitute for pots, 
but one which I do not recollect seeing noticed in 
these pages, and which mauy might be inclined to 
adopt, as equal, if not superior, for home use, to the 
mossing. Of course, it is understood that the moss 
goes into the ground, when planting time comes, along 
with the earth and roots, after all have been dipped in 
a pail of water. This other mode is adopted by merely 
scarifying the surface of a piece of fibry turf, taking up 
the turf then from one to one-aud-a-half inch in thick¬ 
ness, cutting it up into pieces from two-and-a-half to 
three inches square, then with a sharp knife, or a gouge- 
like instrument, cutting out a roundish hole in the 
centre of the piece, but not going quite through at the 
bottom, of something like one-and-a-half to two inches 
in diameter, and in this hole fastening the young plant 
with a little nice light soil. These squares may be set 
on shelves, but better in the ground of houses and pits; 
take up scarcely more room than the smallest pots; may 
I 
