OFFICE AND REMUNERATION OF GARDENERS. 
9 
more costly, tlie viands more choice, and the company may be 
more numerous, frequent, and agreeable; but — there is no 
garden! 
As we ascend higher in the ranks of society, and there are 
larger sums to expend upon pleasurable subjects, and more leisure 
for the enjoyment of them, the garden rises in importance, in a 
higher ratio, perhaps, than the means of procuring and, enjoying 
it. Even the vegetables and the fruits which a gentleman gets 
from his own garden, are superior to any that he can purchase 
for money if he has the wealth of Croesus. He has them when he 
wishes, and in the best condition—as they are not steamed and 
fermented on their carriage to market, or on the store of the 
dealer. Besides this, he has them, or, if he employs a proper 
gardener, he may have them, of superior quality to any that he 
could purchase. Those who grow fruits and vegetables for 
sale, do not work for real quality, but for quantity and appear¬ 
ance to the eye ; and the obtaining of a high degree of these is 
very generally accompanied by a deterioration of that which 
forms the chief excellence of the fruit or the vegetable. The 
strongest-growing and the most abundantly-producing sorts are 
chosen ; and they are so forced with rank manures, that what 
comes to market, fine as it may appear to the eye, is fungous and 
tasteless, and not always wholesome. The gardener to a private 
family has no inducement to this, because his object is not pecu¬ 
niary profit, but superior quality. Therefore, he selects the best 
sorts, and manages them in such a manner as to send the produce 
to table in the full perfection of its flavour and wholesomeness. 
In this, and indeed in every department of his varied office, the 
gardener has a duty to perform, of a higher order than what is 
required from any other of the establishment. The butler is 
expected to put good wine on the table, but he has nothing to do 
with the making of it. So, also, the cook is expected to send up 
good meat well dressed ; but he does not breed beeves or 
sheep,—and if he was called upon to begin his culinary occu¬ 
pations at the comparatively advanced stage recommended by 
Mrs. Glasse, “ first catch your hare,” the family would have to 
wait long for dinner. 
Were we to run over the list of the whole establishment, we 
should find all the members of it in the same predicament, except 
the gardener. There are different ranks of them,—as there are 
VOL. II. no. i. , c 
