l'illi COTTAGE GAKDEEEK AND COUJSiiiif GEE TEEM AN, July 5, lbo'J. 1 ‘j3 
^ as required to make tlie very most of a small place, and 
wisely considered that that talent could not be got and 
kept without adequate remuneration. Instances arc not 
wanting where this principle is honourably carried out to 
the benefit of all parties concerned. 
Waving these matters, however, we may just allude to 
llic causes of this over-abundant supply of gardeners. 
This I believe to be partly owing to the public praise (to 
which I have alluded) of gardeners and gardening. En¬ 
thusiastic .youths dream of arcadian bliss, and of every 
garden being more than an Elysium of happiness. Many 
intelligent youths, who otherwise would make first-rate 
gardeners, get therefore disgusted when they come into 
contact with the hard work and the unremitting attention, 
and thus lose the benefit their good education would give. 
Thus it often happens, that the man with fewest advan¬ 
tages, but determined to succeed, makes the best practical 
gardener; while the dreaming class very often become 
and continue slothful grumblers to the end of their days. 
Another reason that induces many to enter upon gardening 
is the attention and respect they see manifested to gar¬ 
deners at exhibition time, if at no other. A third cause 
ot over-supply is the ease with which many of the com¬ 
moner operations may be soon and well performed ; and 
tlie temptation thus to many to style themselves gardeners 
when they can merely dig, and rake, and mow. Wo 
have seen many labourers that few well-educated gar¬ 
deners would equal at cither the spade or the scythe. In 
fact, some young gardeners now-a-days consider such 
work altogether beneath them. At any rate, a little 
observation will often show that it is above them to do 
such things well. Under such circumstances, whatever 
kind feeling may do and propose, there will be great 
difficulty in making the wages of young gardeners what 
they ought to be. Low as they are, handy labourers 
compete with them for employment. Low as they are, 
there are more under-gardeners now than can get suitable 
employment. Increase the wages by a third, or even a 
fourth, to encourage and give the means for self-culture, 
and add no stringent condition or qualification, and you 
will merely increase the over-abundant supply. Ere 
long there would not be professional employment for the- 
half of those seeking it; and the competition would again 
bring down the wages. Give higher wages, accompanied 
with higher necessary qualifications, and you will increase 
the comforts of those employed, and raise their position 
by lessening their numbers. 
This brings me to wbat I consider the great cause of 
the present over-supply, and that is the carelessness of 
head-gardeners and commercial firms in admitting into 
the business any one and every one irrespective of all 
proper qualifications. In oiir boyish days the worthy 
old gardeners were more particular; they used to con¬ 
sider good scholarship and unstained moral character 
essentials in any aspirant, and if he knew something 
of the classics they liked it all the better. It would 
bo wrong to say that the mantle of these worthies is not 
now honourably worn : but there can be no question that 
such tests and standards are getting far less attended to, 
though no profession or business depends for progress 
more on general intelligence than gardening. In those | 
old days a certain county in the north was famed for 
striking great hatches of young gardeners as if by cut¬ 
tings, and sending them southward every year to seek 
their fortunes. Tire manufacturing process is confined 
to no one county now. The numbers turned out, after a 
year or two of so-called training, as fully-fiedged gar¬ 
deners, would require a dozen of souths and a dozen of 
Englands to find them in employment and places, greatly 
as gardens are increasing. Need we wonder that the 
expressions of disappointment should be loud and deep. 
The remedies for such over-supply and its consequences 
have been glanced at,—the chief remedy I believe to be 
a raising of the necessary qualifications for a gardener, 
and, perhaps, the test of examinations as propounded 
and at one time carried out by Dl\ Lindley. Such quali¬ 
fications and tests of themselves would never make a 
practical gardener, but they would limit the supply, and 
prevent the ignorant and the presuming taking tlie place 
of the intelligent and the persevering. In a matter of 
such importance, instead of any reasoning of my own, J 
would wish to add the powerful concurrent testimony of 
one of the most eminent and successful of English nursery¬ 
men. Writing to me lately, he says—“The stock or 
young gardeners is too large. The supply is far greater 
than the demand. They are turned out too quickly and 
not sufficiently well grounded, and those who know least 
stick up the most. O, how I wish I could get a con¬ 
ference of the leading head-gardeners in the country qfi 
this subject, and induce them to be more particular as id 
what young men they took and commenced to make gar¬ 
deners of. If you saw the letters I get from young men 
pretending to be gardeners, and wanting me to recom¬ 
mend them to places, you \yould say, ‘ Surely a man 
cannot be a gardener in these days without education—> 
without having at the least as much as would enable 
him to write in his own English language ; ’ and yet one 
finds that such a man has begun under some great 
gardenei*, has been passed on to some friend, then passed 
to another, and then the young man fancies he is fit for 
a head-gardener’s place, though he cannot write his own 
name correctly; and in this way such men, destitute of 
all general intelligence, and who neither know nor feci 
their ignorance, are brought to compete with the good, 
tlie studious, and the educated young gardener. Thus 
tlie profession is let down and kept down, and the body 
of good gardeners is prevented taking that position 
which under other circumstances it would take, and to 
which it is fairly and fully entitled. I am not speaking 
of the honourable few, that without early advantages 
have made for themselves a reputation—have raised them¬ 
selves out of the ordinary run by their own untiring 
efforts and persevering application and industry. All 
honour to such men ! I am speaking of great num¬ 
bers who never felt the necessity for such energetic 
application; aud I am led to do so by having had, this 
very day, eleven gardeners here seeking my assistance, 
and seven of these seeking employment in my nursery ; 
and when now, at eleven o’clock, after the toil, fag, and 
worry of the day, I look over my list, and my con¬ 
science tells me, that out of that eleven there are only 
three or four I could fully and really recommend—why 
one feels vexed and sad at such a state of things, and 
cannot help asking. Where is the cause to he found ? The 
chief causes are, taking too many young men indiscrimi¬ 
nately, and without education and intelligence, to be made 
into young gardeners. Two remedies present themselves. 
Every young gardener should serve an apprenticeship, 
and be able to show bis indentures; and, secondly, the 
beads of the gardening world should agree and resolve to 
take, or recommend, no young man who bad not, at the 
least, received or mastered for himself a fair English 
education. These acted on, would, in a few years, lessen 
the supply, and, consequently, raise the position and 
increase the salaries of gardeners generally. To remedy 
or lessen this painfully growing evil is surely worthy 
of general attention, and especially of those at all con¬ 
nected with the gardening press of the day.” 
Than tlie above writer no one could be in a better 
position for arriving at a right conclusion. I leave his 
words to form their legitimate impression. There might 
be a difficulty as to indentures, as gardeners are only 
servants. An exception is made for those who nobly 
make up for past and felt deficiencies ; and rightly so, as 
many of our most successful and intelligent gardeners 
are, to their credit, in every sense almost self-taught men. 
As already indicated, let our young friends clearly under¬ 
stand, that though I approve of a. test of intelligence as a 
means of limiting the supply of fresh recruits, I as firmly 
hold that great general intelligence will never com- 
