274 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
December 30, 1893. 
requirements during their boyhood and school days. 
The rising generation of gardeners all enjoy the 
means for self improvement, especially during the 
winter evenings, and they may rest assured they will 
never regret having embraced those means while still 
within their reach, and while time and duties are less 
pressing. 
It must not be supposed, however, that the writer 
monopolises all the advantages of a good paper. An 
attentive audience can derive a great amount of 
advantage from the experience of others, even if the 
paper is confined to a record of failures, although it 
seldom happens that a man is courageous enough to 
record them. In these days, the end of the nine¬ 
teenth century, which takes or claims extensive 
improvements in all branches of gardening — 
gardening, especially, in all large establishments—is 
tending to be departmental, and young gardeners are 
often very much confined to one department, to 
the neglect of others. The listening to papers on 
various subjects by different members then proves of 
great advantage in diffusing knowledge amongst 
members of the society, whose practice may be 
largely confined to one or other department. A 
gardener in the fruit and vegetable, or what is termed 
the outdoor department, gets, by virtue of his 
position and practice, a good insight into two of the 
principal branches of gardening, and which are 
almost sure to be of material advantage to him in 
after life, unless he becomes a departmental foreman 
permanently in some large establishment ; but when 
one has to take charge of a garden and all its 
belongings, then he cannot afford to neglect any 
branch of gardening. He would, therefore, derive 
advantage from papers relating to indoor gardening, 
particularly in the case of plant culture. On the 
other hand, those who spend much of their time 
under glass, voluntarily or involuntarily, would be 
benefited by listening to papers on fruit or vegetable 
culture. Hence the mutual advantages to the 
members of such societies as we are now discussing. 
Young men often find great attractions for plant 
culture under glass, from one cause or another, and 
it may be to escape the more laborious duties that 
often pertain to the vegetable garden ; but they must 
not deceive themselves into the belief that an 
occasional peep through the glass will enable them 
to grow good Cabbages,jCauliflowers.jCelery or Peas. 
Neither will the listening to papers enable you wholly 
to overcome the difficulties of the situation, but good 
information will enable you with the rest of your 
experience, to go more boldly and confidently into 
the practical part of it when occasion offers. Again, 
it may be said that the discussion of papers will 
never make a good gardener. Neither will the 
listening to masters of singing or violin playing enable 
a man to sing or play. They may, however, excite 
a wholesome emulation, so that one who b' learnt 
these acquirements by practice, will lo-- sing or 
play better from the st’ dening, 
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Ornamental trees and shrubs constitute another 
important item in the adornment of gardens, pleasure 
grounds, and parks; and papers on these subjects 
with regard to selection, planting, pruning, and good 
keeping are all legitimate and desirable for discussion 
at gardening associations. Trees and shrubs, like 
hardy herbaceous plants, have not only been 
neglected in many establishments, but they too have 
been ruthlessly rooted up to make room for the 
popular craze of summer flower bedding and carpet 
scroll work, that soon came to be looked upon with 
wearisomeness on account of their sameness and 
superabundance. I myself have helped to uproot 
shrubbery to make way for the gay parterre, but like 
many others have been led to look upon it since as 
horticultural sacrilege. When this kind of gardening 
is carried out extensively it is expensive and often 
very unsatisfactory, particularly in cold wet seasons 
when the sun-loving exotics are a failure and the 
flower garden a disgrace all through the season. 
Fungoid diseases and insect enemies, but too often 
play havoc with many garden subjects, whether 
grown for use or ornament. Not only may papers 
be read bearing upon these plant destroyers, and 
information given by the reader as to the best means 
of destroying them, but the audience generally may 
contribute of their knowledge and experiences, 
whether successes or failures, so that all may 
mutually benefit by the same, and gardening as a 
pursuit maybe made to progress thereby. In short, 
there should be no neglected corner in the garden, 
nor uncared-for department, as it mars the keeping 
of the rest, and injures the reputation of the 
gardener who is expected to have everything in 
keeping with the times as far as the means at his 
command will allow. 
A paper, however good and of necessarily limited 
duration, can only give an outline to be followed in 
the main particulars, leaving the hearer to fill in the 
detail in actual practice. A man’s practical experi¬ 
ence should enable him to do this, and the sounder 
his practice he will succeed or be enabled to do it 
the more correctly in proportion to his care and the 
love he has for the plants under his charge. The 
reading of papers is meant in a large measure to 
stimulate a love for various classes of plants, and a 
desire to get further information about them. 
Except a gardener has a love for the plants he is 
called upon to grow and tend he will never succeed, 
far less excel in their culture ; but they will to a 
greater or less extent be neglected. Zeal and 
earnestness are the causes that urge all men on to 
success in their several vocations. 
Scientific Aspect. 
The more closely the above questions are considered 
the more closely it will be seen that science and 
good practice are intimately bound together, and 
one a support of the other. It is possible to do fair 
gardening by dint of long experience, but gardening 
can never make much progress so long as the 
operator is satisfied to follow the rules laid down 
orally or by example of his predecessors. A man 
may rest content in the belief that the gardening 
which served his father, and it may be his grand¬ 
father, will also be good enough for him, and so 
probably it would be were every other gardener of 
the same opinion. Then would gardening be at a 
dead halt and stationary, and we should be like the 
unprogressive oriental nations. That condition of 
things it is to be hoped are still far distant. As it is 
the unscientific man is liable to fail by changing his 
locality and being placed under conditions foreign 
to what he has been accustomed. A man may fail 
by being placed under conditions over which he has 
no control, but that has no bearing on the subject 
at issue. Some scientific insight into the ihner 
working of the art would enable him to surmount 
difficulties that might otherwise seem insurmount¬ 
able. " Gardening is an art which does mend 
nature,” and the poet might have added, " for man's 
particular benefit.” “What you do still betters 
what is done,” he continues. Such should be the 
case if it is nDt so always. You cannot do better 
gardening unless well abreast of the times, then you 
may attempt to improve upon it. All this implies 
that you must possess a good knowledge of the 
science of gardening or at least some of the branches 
of it, and by pursuing the science along those lines 
you may hope to excel and thus better the profession 
by so much. There can be no good gardening 
without science or knowledge, as there can be no 
real science that has not been discovered, deter¬ 
mined, or proved by practice, whether in the garden 
or the laboratory. 
The lecture room, or in other words, evening 
meetings held by associations of gardeners, constitute 
the proper and legitimate place where the knowledge 
gained, the notes of observation made, or the 
discoveries brought to light in the laboratory, 
should be explained and disseminated for the 
mutual good of all who may avail themselves 
of it. Valuable knowledge gained by experience 
or discoveries made, if they are to remain hid and 
stored away in the brains and note books of those 
who make them, are a dead loss to the world 
at large and gardening in particular when such 
knowledge pertains to cultivation. Those who have 
no opportunity of making discoveries or experiments 
of their own can assimilate and disseminate the 
information ascertained by others, for only by such 
means is it possible in many cases to diffuse such 
information amongst the masses. 
Papers are sometimes read on subjects which deal 
with what a good many look upon as the ornaments 
of the profession. This term may be applied to 
historical or literary papers or those dealing with 
interesting science, and which do not bear directly 
upon cultivation. They have their uses notwith¬ 
standing. Historical papers review what has been 
done, and are apt sometimes to take the conceit out 
of us, for we are too liable occasionally to boast of 
igth century progress as if comparatively little had 
been done by our predecessors, whereas we often 
find that they did wonderful gardening under great 
difficulties and inconveniences. Nor is interesting 
science to he despised, for many good horticulturists 
have been able to apply it to practical purpose. A 
well informed gardener may and does often interest 
his employer and others under whom he is placed. 
He who can converse with his employer upon history 
or topics of scientific interest, has two strings to his 
bow, for he is able to gain and retain a place in his 
employer’s estimation. Should the employer have to 
get the information elsewhere, it would mean depre¬ 
ciation to the well-informed character of the man on 
subjects directly relating to his calling. The higher 
branches of the knowledge of gardening, and even 
the purely interesting science, open up a field for the 
gardener’s own delectation in the surroundings of 
his daily life, and constitute an invaluable aid to his 
personal happiness even should his lot be rather a 
hard, laborious or uphill one. All this can of course 
be followed up in the evenings and during his leisure 
hours. 
Independently of the information imparted or 
gained in the course of discussion, the acquiring of 
the ability to speak in public may be and often is of 
practical value to a man in after life, even if he should 
never become an orator. When young gardeners 
get distributed over the length and breadth of the 
land in rural or suburban districts, they are often 
called upon to organise or conduct local shows, so 
that when matters have to he discussed in com¬ 
mittee or otherwise, they can do so with more con¬ 
fidence, and herein does experience come to the aid 
of the speakers. This acquirement cannot be 
obtained in any other way than by practice at 
meetings such as these. There are always, and will 
be differences of opinion in discussion, and it is well 
to be prepared for them, not merely for the sake of 
out-arguing your opponents, but to convince them 
simply by persuasion that your case or your views 
are better or more correct than the others which 
may be put forward. 
There are other objects for which gardening asso¬ 
ciations may exist; and not the least is the exhibition 
of fruits, flowers, vegetables, and interesting objects 
relating to gardening or of popular interest in one 
way or other amongst those whose vocation is the 
cultivation of plants. Work of this kind should 
have the same object in view as the reading of papers, 
namely, a diffusing of information relating to the 
profession, and as a stimulus to greater efforts in 
the art of cultivation. Under existing circumstances 
such additional aid to knowledge is beyond the scope 
of the present association. Being in close proximity 
to the great centre of plant collections and the 
numerous metropolitan exhibitions, we feel the want 
of exhibitions here much less than those gardeners 
or associations living at a greater distance from the 
great centre of horticultural activity, where all new 
plants of any importance are sure to find their way 
long before they have had time to grow old. 
The writing of essays on horticultural subjects in 
