Jan. 24th, 1885. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
323 
Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.”—B acon. 
fckimtg Work 
SATURDAY, JANUARY 24r//, 1885. 
Teetotal Gardening. —From out of the midst 
of a crowd of hard-up Birmingham artisans and 
labourers is perhaps about the last place in which 
we should look for a gardening moral, although 
quaint experience of human life tells us that we 
may really, and not merely figuratively, often 
find sermons in stones and in other raw material 
where least looked for. Hundreds of men, more 
or less in need of work, money, and food, are 
gathered together, and from out of the body one 
or two typical men interviewed gave their experi¬ 
ence of their lives and wants. One, a gun-finisher, 
had found trade bad indeed, and his wages for 
eighteen months had averaged 12s. per week. 
The other, a carpenter, had up to within two 
months earned 34s. per week, but in two or 
three weeks was dead on his back, and lamented 
“he hadn’t the price of a pot of fourpenny.” He 
had no garden, nor sighed for one, and, alas ! was 
the type of the majority of those with whom he 
was demonstrating. The guu-finisher in his best 
days of work made on an average 23s. per week, 
but he had in those days invested savings in the 
Post Office Savings Bank. He had a garden, of 
which he was fond, and he had been a tee¬ 
totaller for ten years. 
There is, perhaps, very much more connection 
between prosperity and a love for gardening in 
the working classes and temperance than is com¬ 
monly admitted; but here, at any rate, was 
evidence of its association under singularly 
unlooked for conditions, and the gun-finisher with 
his miserable weekly income of 12s., eked out, 
as it now was, with drafts upon the savings 
bank, that caused the account there to become 
smaller by degrees and sadly less, yet in his 
poverty could proudly boast of his bit of garden, 
“ where we grow a few things, such as Radishes, 
Lettuce, Mustard and Cress, and a few flowers,” 
and here, with conscious pride, is added, “ You 
should see it in the summer.’’ And from out of 
that garden, little enough in all conscience, as 
the nature of the crops show, was made just a 
little money, though perhaps far more profitable, 
was found in it, even in these days of privation 
and trouble, much pleasure and solace. 
We confess we should like to have seen that 
poor teetotal gun-finisher’s Birmingham garden 
in the summer. What a tale it might unfold. 
Those of our professional gardeners who pride 
themselves so much on the wondrous and 
beautiful productions of their labours never can 
know what are the difficulties and tribulations 
which surround men like to our artisan hero, or 
realize how sweet such gardening is when thus 
pursued. We have seen not a few gardens very 
like to the gun-finisher’s in and about the great 
metropolis. They are mere courts or yards, 
giving hardly area enough in them to enable the 
metaphorical cat to be swung, surrounded by 
houses, walls, out-houses, and all kinds of 
erections, existing in an atmosphere of smoke and 
reeking with soot. And yet that sort of indomit¬ 
able energy and genuine love for gardening, 
with temperate habits, which so happily marked 
the Birmingham gun-finisher, have elsewhere 
evolved from out of these little town enclosures, 
by courtesy called gardens, such wondrous little 
floral paradises as may well make those strange 
to town life, to wonder and admire. 
We may take it for granted that what the 
garden thus is so is the home, and these horticul¬ 
tural and domestic blessings are only found where 
men lead temperate lives and abhor the public- 
house. Ho doubt there is ample difference of 
opinion as to the merits of total abstinence, but 
when simple bare facts stare us in the face we 
should be lost to all sense of truth and justice 
did we not readily admit that life to the tempe¬ 
rate man, especially to him who has real garden 
tastes, must be a thousand times more happy than 
it can be to the unfortunate wretch who prosti¬ 
tutes his all, whether financial or moral, in the 
public-house. 
Hard times are bringing us face to face with 
many grave social questions, and we are invited 
to solve many difficult social problems. It is 
most evident that in the working out of solutions 
both gardening and temperance must play impor¬ 
tant parts. We want men when they earn money 
to be saving and thrifty. Better habits of life 
will help to that end greatly ; gardening will 
help to that end also. It may be doubted 
whether in all the various baits held out to 
working-men to detach them from the public-house 
any one is stronger or more practical in its 
character than is gardening, for it is full of charm 
and, well conducted, it is not without its profit. 
In a wider sense gardening must be made to play 
also a stirring part in the future of the nation, 
for it is only through its instrumentality that we 
can hope to attach the labourer to the soil and to 
give him a permanent interest in the land, from 
which just now he is so ready to flee. 
Gardening and Tithes. —Difficult as it must 
of necessity be to discuss such a question as that 
embodied in the above heading without making 
political references, yet it is evident that it must 
be considered thoroughly, whatever danger of 
such association may follow, because of its 
connection with the fortunes of gardening in 
this country. It is, therefore, when looked at 
from a gardener's point of view, exceedingly 
difficult to avoid an expression of warm sympathy 
with those who are so ardently labouring to 
relieve gardening from the burthen of tithe which 
proves so irksome and so detrimental. Just now, 
when we find such depression in all that attaches 
to land cultivation, and foreign competition so 
tremendous, we read almost with astonishment 
that in this country, where the production of 
food of every kind is of the very first importance, 
there should exist an impost on fruit and vege¬ 
table cultivation of so oppressive a kind as that 
of extraordinary tithes. 
When and how such an impost was originated 
need hardly be discussed. What we have to 
consider rather is how land and its cultivation 
can be relieved, and in all parts of the kingdom 
gardening in all its phases, and specially in those 
phases which are connected with our food supply, 
should be made as free as possible. Were tithes 
a secular impost, we may be sure that they would 
be regarded with the same consideration that rates 
are, because all secular imposts upon land are made 
for purposes from which land may be expected to 
derive directly or indirectly some benefit. Thus 
we pay poor, police, sanitary, educational, and 
highway rates from land, because in some prac¬ 
tical form or another not only land but all kinds 
of property derives some practical benefit from 
their expenditure. We derive through their 
agency good government, order, roads, and 
health, and these are benefits of the highest 
order and advantageous to everyone, rich or 
poor. But tithes are eminently an impost from 
which no practical benefit results whilst being 
applied for the maintenance of a certain religious 
institution, there is so much of injustice in the 
impost that all have to pay, no matter how 
strongly they may demur to the object to which 
the tithes are applied. 
When therefore we find tithes at once a cause 
of political, religious, and social discord, and of 
heavy discouragement upon land cultivation, 
especially in its higher and more profitable 
element—viz., gardening, we have no course but 
to deplore strongly the existence of such an 
impost and earnestly to desire its removal. Tithes 
are not universal, as in some parishes church 
income is derived from glebe, but it does seem 
as if this impost pressed the most heavily in 
those districts specially favourable for fruit 
culture. Unhappily, when land is taken from 
farming and converted into fruit-garden, not only 
does the tithe impost become largely increased, 
but rent, rates, and taxes increase also, and of 
course labour and cost of cultivation is greatly 
added to. Thus the intending fruit-grower is, as 
against his eminently favoured rivals abroad, 
tremendously handicapped. 
-- 
The National Auricula and Carnation 
Societies. —It would seem, from the reports of 
the proceedings of the Committees of these 
Societies published in our last, that an effort is 
at last to be made to render their exhibitions 
rather more orderly than they have been in the 
past. One reform not adopted, but apparently 
essential, is, that the twin societies should be 
merged into one, both in name and in constitution, 
for the personel of the managing bodies seems 
to be almost identical now. If one subscrip¬ 
tion would make all present members equally 
members of both bodies, the present duplex 
and complex arrangement would be simplified, 
and floriculture would gain by the change. Of 
the rules adopted for the governance of the 
shows, number two cannot practically be carried 
out at South Kensington, and the Committee 
must have known that there it would be, as it 
always has been, a dead letter. The fourth ride 
is an excellent one if carried out, for anything 
more chaotic than has been the condition of the 
Auricula and Carnation and Picotee Shows, when 
seedlings have been under consideration, could 
hardly be imagined, and when awards of cer¬ 
tificates have been finally made, it has puzzled 
the keenest of reporters to find them. If all 
seedlings are henceforth compulsorily kept 
separate from the other classes, it will be a gain 
to all but a few exhibitors. Finally, of the fifth 
rule, it may be said that it will help to render the 
settlement of the vexed amateur question more 
difficult than ever. What is to be understood by 
publishing ? If an amateur issues private lists of 
plants for sale, is that to be considered as 
“publishing” or “advertising” in the sense in 
■which those words are usually understood ? If 
so, then it is equally publishing and advertising 
to make a private deal with a nurseryman, when 
done by letter, as many amateurs are known to 
do, and we can scarcely think it was designed to 
have that effect. 
- -■>%< - 
Cauliflowers. —A gardener friend wrote a few 
days since:—“I am still cutting Yeitch’s Self- 
protecting Broccoli.” What a fortunate man thus 
to have a stock of this valuable kind for a house 
supply at this midwinter season ! Yet we should 
hardly say fortunate, because what is his fortune 
may well be that of plentj 7 of others in reference 
to this capital winter variety. If a man has but a 
good breadth of Snow’s Winter White Broccoli to 
follow suit, then he is fairly tided over till other 
and latter kinds come in in due season. With 
those excellent sorts that cover the period from the 
