March 14th, 1885. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
435 
SEEDSMEN 
Royal Her Majesty 
Warrant &sJ 5 x§KsP ! ® The Queen, 
AND BY 
Special Warrant to H.R.H.the Prince of Wales, 
PRIZE 
LAWN B RASS SEEDS 
AWARDED 
The Diplome d’Honneur, Amsterdam, 1883. 
The Special Gold Medal, Melbourne, 1880. 
SUTTON’S 
EVERGREEN MIXTURES 
SPECIALLY PREPARED FOR 
Garden Lawns, 
Tennis Lawns, 
Cricket Grounds. 
PRICES. 
Sutton’s Mixture for Garden J Per bushel, 25s. Od. 
Lawns and CroquetGrounds 1 ,, gallon, 3s. 3d. 
Sutton’s Mixture for Tennis ( Per bushel, 22s. 6d. 
Lawns and Bowling Greens 1 ,, gallon, 3s. Od. 
Sutton’s Mixture for Cricket ( Per bushel, 22s. 6d. 
Grounds.{ „ gallon, 3s. Od. 
63T Sow 3 bushels per acre to form new Lawns , or 1 bushel 
per acre to improve an existing sward. 
“Your new plot of Grass is perfection itself, I don’t 
think I have ever seen better.”—J. C. POX, Esq., Royal 
Horticultural Society, South Kensington. 
“ The new Lawn made with Messrs. Sutton’s Grass Seeds 
has been a wonderful success. Everyone who sees it is 
astonished to find that it was only sown last May.”—Mrs. 
CRESSWELL, Morney Cross. 
“ Y T our Grass Seeds have quite surpassed anything ever 
seen about here before. My employer desired me to express 
his pleasure in playingon such a close sward of sown grass.” 
—Mr. J. McINTOSH, Gardener to W. Lowson, Esq., 
Taymount. 
“I have a wonderfully good Tennis Lawn from the seed 
supplied by you last season. Although only sown the 
second week in May, the Lawn was actually played upon 
the first week in August.”—T. W. FORPSHEW, Esq., 
Witney. 
SUTTON’S 
PAMPHLET OH THE FORMATION AHD 
MPROMEHT of LAWNS from SEED 
May bo had GRATIS and POST FREE on application. 
&#07uf(?J4A 
Seedsmen by Royal W r arrant to H.M. the Queen, 
AND ALSO THE FIRST SEEDSMEN BY SPECIAL WARRANT 
to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. 
READING. 
Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.”— Bacon. 
C()f fcknmg oiEorlb. 
SATURDAY, MARCH Urn, 1885. 
The Training of Gardeners. — With con¬ 
siderable regularity there crops up in discussion, 
in the gardening papers, the subject of the 
training or education of our gardeners. In 
assuming that some technical and even scientific 
form of training has now become essential to the 
production of good gardeners, it is not thereby 
intended to imply that the present race of 
gardeners are lacking in ability and knowledge; 
but those who take the pessimist view in the 
discussion, seem to feel that, as in other trades and 
vocations, some special scientific and technical 
training is found essential in order that the 
workers in such trades may hold their own in the 
world s competitions, so is it assumed that 
gardeners in the future must be as fully qualified 
to hold their own, if English gardening is to be 
that valuable and profitable avocation it has been 
in the past. Optimist writers, on the other hand, 
argue that we have been able in the past to create 
a first-class body of gardeners from out of our 
ordinary methods of culture and education. They 
say that our nurseries, our private and public 
gardens, and our market-growing establishments, 
oiler admirable training institutions, and that the 
production of capable gardeners through the 
instrumentality of these affords ample evidence 
that we are doing very well as we are. So far so 
good, on either side, and so far the answer is full 
and complete if gardening is to remain what it is 
now, and what it has been for many years. 
To tell the truth, we have proceeded but in a 
slight degree upon any scientific basis; our 
practice has mostly been either haphazard, or by 
rule of thumb, and the why and the wherefore 
has troubled us little. As our fathers have done, 
so have we, only improving a little upon their 
methods, just as new necessities arose, but still 
departing from their ways only to an infinitesimal 
degree. Perhaps, it may be asked, and that too 
with some aptness, why depart from those old 
methods if they have, through many long years, 
been proved to be good practice ; and the answer 
would be hard to find, because from out of that 
practice have come very splendid successes. If 
slowly, at least surely, our gardening knowledge 
and practice has gone beyond that of our fathers, 
and therefore we have some things to be grateful 
for. Then there remains the question how far 
that improved practice might have been farther 
aided and benefited, if our garden workers 
enjoyed special rather than haphazard training. 
Certainly any such technical training, as it is 
suggested should he given, could hardly be 
afforded anywhere but in a few favoured centres, 
and through subsidized institutions. These must 
of necessity he available only to the comparatively 
few after all, and generally they could hardly 
expect to materially leaven the entire body of 
gardeners. 
A good deal Las of late been written as to the 
part the Royal Botanic Gardens, at Kew, should 
play in this work of training gardeners. Those 
who urge that Kew should be such a training 
institution, seem to over-look the fact that it is 
essentially a botanic garden, and that its real work 
is rather scientific than general or practical. 
Kew, no doubt, turns out many able and talented 
botanists, and not a few qualified to take charge 
of botanic and similar gardens. It also turns 
out a few prigs and pedants, who rather assume 
brevet rank amongst gardeners, because of their 
Kew associations, but these soon find their 
level. Certain it is that to have this national 
Botanic Garden utilized as a national training 
institution for horticulture is an absurd notion, 
and one which cannot be too soon dismissed. 
If we are to set up a national training school 
or college of horticulture, it is certain that its 
object mu9t be wider and far more practical than 
can he those of any botanic garden. Of necessity, 
it must train its students in book-keeping; in 
physical geography, that a thorough knowledge 
of the native habitats and habits of exotic plants 
may be acquired ; in the Latin tongue, so that 
the principles which guide the nomenclature of 
plants may be obtained. A smattering of botany, 
a fair knowledge of chemistry, especially as relat¬ 
ing to soils, manures, and the constitution of plants; 
and, not least, such practical subjects as drawing, 
mensuration, and the principles of construction 
of glass erections, heating them, &c., must be 
taught, in addition to actual labour in all the 
best branches of gardening. A good study of 
gardening in other countries would also he of 
exceeding value. Some four or five years of such 
training as an institution like this would give to 
any intelligent young man who took into it with 
him some previous knowledge of gardening, 
should turn him out really a first-class man, one, 
indeed, far beyond the average of gardeners of 
the present day. 
But the question arises, when such an one is 
produced, would he he willing then to take an 
average gardener’s situation. The prizes of the 
profession are few, and these have almost always 
been well filled by men trained entirely in private 
gardens and in nurseries, and as a rule they have 
well served their employers. No doubt there is 
ample room for increased intelligence amongst 
gardeners ; but these are the products of lack of 
early education rather than of practical training. 
There is room, too, for more of polish ; for there 
is too much of the rough-and-ready element, 
which it is hoped time and education will 
eliminate. A gardener will be none the less a 
respected and trusted servant that is somewhat of 
a gentleman, and assuredly he will be none the 
less a good gardener. The entire profession 
derives honour and strength from those of its 
members who show that, though but gardeners, 
they can be gentlemen also. Where it is pur¬ 
posed in early years to put a lad into the profes¬ 
sion of gardening, certainly it is well he should 
have as much special instruction as he can obtain 
in drawing, mensuration, chemistry, book-keeping, 
and similar useful subjects, as these will certainly 
prove of immense value to the neophyte in time 
to come. 
Still, into his mind must be strictly inculcated 
the principle of humility, for any novice in gar¬ 
dening must not hesitate to begin his practical 
learning at the very bottom of the ladder, hoping 
to rise from round to round as he ages, until 
finally he shall reach the topmost one, proud 
indeed that he began his ascent from the very 
bottom, and not, through some meretricious aid, 
half-way up. There is hardly an element in our 
present educational curriculum which will not 
prove of some value to a gardener. Still wiser is 
it to get a thorough grasp of a few specific 
subjects than to waste time over a dozen, none of 
which may he fully gripped. Boys who are to 
become gardeners want no time wasted over them 
in technical training whilst they are in school. 
They can pick that up fast enough when they 
get into a garden, and the better school education 
