April 20, 1895. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
589 
that knowledge is strength, and, as it is quite natural 
for a man to covet strength, he has additional 
inducement held out to him to follow after know¬ 
ledge. 
In fact, the friction of mind with mind, which is one 
of the inevitable results of meetings of this kind, 
will go a great way towards rubbing the corners of 
a man, and will infallibly make him a better gar¬ 
dener and a more useful and intelligent member of 
society. Besides gaining knowledge with regard to 
the workings of his profession, he will learn to 
express his own ideas logically, coherently, and in 
proper sequence; and the man who can do this is, 
rest assured, possessed of no mean qualification. 
Personally, I have the highest belief in the great 
power for good exercised by gardeners’ mutual 
improvement associations, and would advise all, the 
younger men particularly, to become active members 
of some society or other. I say active members 
advisedly, for the man who takes all and gives 
nothing is not making the most of his advantages, 
and is, to say the least of it, acting a selfish part. 
The younger members may make excuse and say, 
oh, there are older men present, and it does not 
become me to push my opinions before theirs. Now 
this is a very right and proper feeling, but must not 
be carried too far in its application. Youth does not 
necessarily imply ignorance. There are some men 
who will learn more in five or six years than others 
will in a lifetime. Youth is not a crime, although 
we have known some people term it a misfortune, 
and it is one of the signs of the times that com¬ 
paratively young men are to-day occupying more 
positions of importance than perhaps at any other 
period of the world's history. 
We have followed the youth from the schoolroom 
through his apprenticeship, and seen him fairly 
launched at the commencement of his gardening 
career equipped with a considerable share of know¬ 
ledge, which is of course a guarantee that he will 
thirst to obtain more. I suppose there never 
breathed a man, let him have drunk as deeply as he 
may at the fountain of knowledge, that was ever 
satisfied with his achievements, or whose thirst was 
ever entirely quenched ; and just as this is true in a 
general sense, so it is true with regard to the student 
of horticulture. It is a profession that is never 
learnt, the inmost recesses of which are never 
explored. A man may devote the whole of his life 
to the systematic study of this truly noble profession, 
may grow grey-headed in its services, and yet be 
forced to admit at the end of such a useful and 
well-spent life that he has by no means drunk of the 
deepest waters of knowledge, but has yet much left 
to learn. 
Now. supposing our young friend to have made 
the most of his opportunities, and his three or four 
years of probation as a young gardener to have been 
spent in the manner suggested previously, he will 
naturally aspire to a foreman’s position. In many 
large ga.dens there are, of course, several foremen, 
one usually being placed in charge of a department; 
thus, the care of the glass may fall to the lot of one, 
the charge of the flower garden to another, the 
vegetables and hardy fruit to a third, and so on ; or 
in cases where things are conducted on a very large 
scale these departments may be even further divided. 
Now while this departmental system undoubtedly 
has its advantages, it has its disadvantages also. It 
to a large extent tends to make the foremen in charge 
of the several divisions specialists, and specialists 
only ; and if we are to take any notice at all of the 
advertisements that appear from time to time it is 
good all-round gardeners that are wanted. Now it 
follows that a man who is a specialist with regard 
to the treatment of any one class of plants becomes 
so only by losing to a certain extent his practical 
and up-to-date acquaintance with other and perhaps 
not less important branches. Therefore, before 
accepting a departmental foreman’s place, the 
journeyman should ask himself whether it will 
materially assist him in reaching the particular goal 
at which he is aiming. If so, well and good. 
But I am of opinion that to those who aspire to 
fitting themselves for one day taking a gentlemen's 
place “ on their own hooks,” as so many young men 
fondly phrase it, it is by far the wiser plan to 
endeavour to obtain a foreman’s place in a less pre¬ 
tentious establishment, where they will not be so 
strictly confined to one division, but will be able to 
keep in touch with the whole, or nearly the whole. 
After three or four years of foreman’s experience 
our friend, if he has got any grit or any true ambition 
in him, will at last be in a position, provided the fates 
prove propitious, to fill a head gardener's place in a 
good establishment, in the enjoyment of which we 
will leave him after having safely seen him through 
what we may term the embryo stages of his existence. 
The discipline he has undergone should make him 
capable of managing a staff of younger or less 
experienced men, and render him able to direct them 
in the right performance of their duties. It should 
not be forgotten, however, that just as when a young 
gardener he had certain duties to perform with 
regard to respect and obedience to his superiors, etc. 
he has also, now he has got so far up the ladder of 
success, duties to perform towards the young men 
under his direction. 
In far too many cases the head gardener forgets 
the young men after he has lost sight of them at the 
close of the day’s work, and that it is his duty to 
assist them in the pursuance of their studies in the 
evening seldom enters his head. If the head 
gardener would bear this in mind and strive to 
assist his young men in the following after knowledge 
a great end would be gained. The younger members 
finding their superiors taking such a lively interest 
in their educational advancement would most cer¬ 
tainly take encouragement and vigorously pursue 
studies that are now in far too many instances not 
taken up at all, or, at least, followed up in a very 
half-hearted and intermittent manner, like the 
proverbial donkey’s gallop. The friendly feeling 
between juniors and seniors, inferiors and superiors, 
would then be increased to an extent that could not 
fail to be most conducive to the smooth and com¬ 
fortable working of the horticultural machine. It is 
a great pity that the example set by a well-known 
gardener of to-day, viz., that of keeping up a corres¬ 
pondence with all the young men who have at any 
time served with him is not more frequently followed. 
For, although it would entail a great amount of 
trouble in the cases of the larger establishments, the 
extra labour would be more than compensated for 
by the strengthening of the bonds of a friendship 
that are at present often conspicuous by their 
absence. 
With regard to the higher education of gardeners 
there is yet, we must all admit, a lamentable 
deficiency in this respect. What I would like to see 
is a number of schools or colleges devoted to the 
teaching of the higher branches of horticulture, the 
students therein to be admitted through the passing 
of a competitive examination, the prizes in which 
should be scholarships for periods of not less than 
two, although it might advantageously be extended 
to three years. The sister science, “ agriculture,” is 
to a certain extent provided for in this respect, and I 
trust the time is not far distant when horticulture 
will look after her young disciples in a similar 
fashion. I hope the two scholarships given by the 
Horticultural College of Swanley are onlyihe example 
that shall be followed in many other parts of the 
country ere long. We are all, I think, in hopes that 
a brighter day will yet dawn for the gardener when 
we shall in deed and in truth be able to sing in the 
words of the good old ballad : 
The gardener’s is the noblest, 
The richest craft of all! 
It was the only thing thought fit 
For Man before the Fall, 
Although the first of brotherhoods 
Their own the “ Masons” call, 
Our grand old Father Adam wore 
The “ Apron ” first of all. 
The gardener is the freeest 
From sorrow or disease, 
His “ Pulse” is always healthy 
And he never wants “ Heartsease.” 
And beauty blushes where he goes 
With flowers that never dim, 
And “ Love-lies-bleeding ” at his feet 
While " Tulips ” glow for him. 
The gardener is the richest, 
For all he has he tills, 
His “ Stocks ” are always rising 
And his “ banks ” he always fills. 
When other folks are saving 
He may go it without stint, 
He never can get short of cash 
For he’s always got the “ Mint.' 
Then sing the gardener’s song. 
It is the best of trades, 
The “ King of Trumps ’’ in our esteem 
Shall be the “ King of Spades.” 
A. S. Galt, Kew. 
Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs, by 
A. D. Webster. A valuable guide to planters of beautiful 
trees and shrubs for the adornment of parks and gardens. 
Price, 3s.; post free, 3s. 3d. Publisher, Gardening World, 
1, Clement’s Inn, Strand, London, W.C. 
GARDEN CAMPANULAS. 
At the meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society 
which was held in the Westminster Drill Hall on 
Tuesday, April 9th, Mr. Selfe-Leonard presiding, 
Mr. J. Wood contributed an essay upon garden 
Campanulas which was read by the assistant 
secretary of the society. In his opening remarks the 
essayist touched upon the wide range of geographical 
distribution which the genus Campanula enjoyed, 
the old world appearing to be particularly rich in its 
representatives, probably from the fact that we 
possessed a better and more complete knowledge 01 
this part of the world than we did of North and 
South America. The great variety in the habit of 
growth, colour of bloom, period of flowering, etc., 
exhibited by the various members of the genus was, 
he said, immense, and included tall and stately plants 
several feet in height as well as dwarf or prostrate 
Alpines, together with all the intermediate stages. 
It was of the hardy perennial section of the genus 
that the essayist wished principally to deal with and 
amongst them there might, he said, be mentioned a 
host of beautiful garden plants. 
The paper then went to describe what in the 
opinion of the essayist would be an ideal Campanula 
garden, for why, he said, should we not have a 
garden devoted to Campanulas as well as to Roses 
or any other class of plants ? In making such a 
garden it would be found that a piece of land 
environed by shrubs, although open to the rays of 
the sun, would be the most suitable ; for the brilliant 
reds, the rich purples, or dazzling whites of the Bell 
Flowers, were always exhibited to greater advantage 
against the sombre background of evergreens than 
they were when such an environment was not present. 
Besides this, he had always found the Bell Flowers 
to flourish best in the immediate vicinity of dwarf 
trees and shrubs, as these served to moderate the 
dryness of the atmosphere. The plan of planting in 
masses of one sort was recommended, and the 
essayist drew a glowing picture of the glories of a 
Campanula garden where such a plan was adopted 
and where a certain amount of naturalness was per¬ 
mitted. Most of the best known Campanulas were 
then enumerated, together with many of their dis¬ 
tinguishing peculiarities, and a few hints as to the 
particular situations most likely to meet their special 
requirements. 
With regard to their culture, the essayist averred 
that although it was attended with no great difficul¬ 
ties, si ill many of the members of the genus had 
special needs which must be attended to if it was 
expected that they should thrive and gladden the 
heart of the cultivator with their beauty. Thus it 
would be found that many of the taller growing 
plants needed a deep rich soil and an abundance of 
water at the root, whilst many of the Alpines, such 
as, for instance, C. Raineri loved to be allowed to 
creep along a moist stone ledge where only a light 
covering of soil was present. With regard to pro¬ 
pagation, root division was at once the most reliable 
method as well as the one most commonly adopted. 
The cutting up and dividing of the roots was, the 
essayist said, much better performed with the knife 
rather than with the spade, for it was his experience 
that very few of the Campanulas would stand to 
have their roots chopped about with a spade. 
In the discussion that followed the reading of the 
paper Dr. Masters stated that, while many of the 
Campanulas were undeniably beautiful plants and as 
such deserved every attention that could be bestowed 
npon them, he was sorry to say that at present there 
existed a very lamentable confusion with regard to 
the correct names of many of those which were now 
in cultivation. He was glad to say that steps were 
being taken at Chiswick to conduct a series of 
Campanula trials and to gather together a collection 
of the most valuable members of the genus ; and he 
pressingly invited any Campanula growers who 
might be present to contribute of their abundance 
and to send to Chiswick pieces of any plants they 
might have in their possession. A cordial vote of 
thanks to the essayist terminated the proceedings. 
Vines and Vine Culture.—The best book on Grapes. By 
Archibald F. Barron, Superintendent of the Royal Horticulture 
Society’s Gadens, Chiswick; Secretary of the Fruit Com- 
mitee. Demy 8vo., Handsomely bound in Cloth. Price, 5s. 
post free, 5s. 3d. Publisher, Gardening World, i, Clements 
Inn, Strand, W.C, 
