December  26,  1901. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
577 
that  was  once  characteristic  in  trade,  but,  happily,  it  still 
exists  in  rural  establishments  where  labour  is  employed  on 
country  estates  and  in  private  gardens.  It  is  a  pleasing  sign 
to  see  labourers  pass  a  lifetime  under  one  employer,  and 
in  the  same  garden,  contented  with  their  lot,  and  in  many 
cases  better  off  than  the  man  who  is  supposed  to  be  pro¬ 
tected  by  his  union.  The  garden  labourer  does  not  figure 
very  high  in  the  world  of  horticulture,  but  he  is  a  power 
nevertheless.  It  is  his  arm  that  wields  the  spade,  without 
which  little_  can  be  produced  ;  and  under  many  a  battered 
hat  there  is  a  thoroughly  horticultural  mind.  A  good 
labourer  is  worth  a  lot  to  a  gardener,  but  more  to  his  em¬ 
ployer.  His  wages  are  not  high,  his  pleasures  few,  and  any 
little  perquisites  that  fall  to  his  lot  at  the  season  when  men 
feel  more  friendly  disposed  towards  their  fellows  than  usual, 
are  not  lost  on  the  one  hand,  nor  unappreciated  on  the  other. 
It  is  at  Christmas  time  that  the  old  labourer  (there  are  plenty 
of  them),  the  father  of  the  staff,  who  has  passed  on  to  the 
stage  of  leaf-sweeping  and  label-making,  talks  of  the  years 
that  have  gone  and  the  changes  he  has  witnessed.  The 
season  reminds  him  of  the  succession  of  masters  who  have 
ruled  the  establishment  during  his  time,  the  gardeners  he 
has  worked  under,  and  the  young  men  who  have  passed  in 
and  out  of  the  bothy  during  the  period.  He  is  proud  to 
remember  some — the  best  of  them,  perhaps — who  have  gone 
on  and  are  now  gardeners  themselves  ;  and  the  old  worn-out 
labourer  wonders  what  have  become  of  others,  then  shakes 
his  head,  and  doubts  that  they  have  not  made  much  on’t. 
Perhaps  the  old  man  will  not  see  another  Christmas,  but 
that  does  not  worry  him  ;  and  he  will  hobble  to  the  garden 
as  long  as  his  legs  will  carry  him,  conscious  of  the  respect  he 
commands,  and  with  the  knowledge  that  when  he  is  called 
to  lay  aside  his  tools  it  will  be  with  the  satisfaction  of  duty 
done  during  long  years  of  service.  Reader,  there  are  none 
of  us  who  may  wish  for  a  better  end. 
Outside  the  garden  proper,  yet  having  a  flavour  of  garden¬ 
ing,  there  is  an  order  of  things  at  Christmas  which  belongs 
entirely  to  the  season.  Go  to  the  railway  station  at  any 
great  populated  centre,  and  watch  the  loaded  trucks  of  Holly 
Mistletoe,  Yew,  Ivy,  and  other  evergreens  that  come  in  one 
after  the  other  ;  and  notice  the  bundles  heaped  up  in  great 
piles  in  the  markets.  You  wonder  where  all  the  material 
comes  from,  and  however  it  will  be  disposed  of.  It  plays 
no  part  in  the  commodities  of  life,  yet  it  represents  con¬ 
siderable  value,  and  is  illustrative  of  that  common  sentiment 
to  keep  up  the  old-fashioned  customs  of  Christmas.  Follow 
the  fortunes  of  the  Holly  and  the  Mistletoe,  and  you  will  see 
various  little  acts  on  the  stage  of  life.  Is  it  not  the  old 
spirit  that  prompts  the  presiding  authority  in  the  work¬ 
man’s  home  to  count  out  her  money  for  the  Christmas  cheer 
and  leave  a  few  coppers  over  for  the  little  bundle  of  green 
stuff,  just  to  make  the  house  look  seasonable  1  Consider  in 
how  many  thousands  of  homes  this  is  done,  and  you  will 
have  no  need  to  wonder  what  becomes  of  the  mountains  of 
evergreens  that  are  rushed  into  the  markets  at  this  season. 
What  a  business  it  is,  this  preparation  for  Christmas ! 
It  affects  us  at  home,  in  the  garden,  the  nursery,  the  wood¬ 
land,  and  the  market ;  but  the  people  of  other  climes,  to 
whom  Christmas  may  have  but  little  meaning,  have  a  large 
share  in  it.  What  would  Christmas  be  without  fruits — not  only 
those  grown  at  home,  but  the  productions  of  the  tropics — that 
are  poured  in,  cargo  after  cargo,  as  the  season  approaches  1 
The  very  thought  of  it  all  is  stupendous,  and  the  end  is 
largely  that  desire  to  keep  up  the  customs  so  dear  to  the 
hearts  of  British  people. 
And  thoughts  will  wander  backwards  and  forwards  at  this 
season  to  well-known  figures  in  the  gardening  -world  who 
were  with  us  last  year,  but  have  passed  in  the  meantime  to 
the  great  unseen.  We  shall  look  ahead  as  well,  and  wonder 
what  the  coming  year  has  in  store  for  us  individually  as  the 
world  of  gardening  rolls  on.  We  shall  think,  some  of  us,  of 
dear  ones  away  out  in  Africa,  where  the  war  still  drags 
wearily  on,  and  wonder  wThat  sort  of  Christmas  they  are 
having.  Their  thoughts  also,  in  their  lonely  vigils  of  the 
blockhouse,  will  be  wafted  homewards,  and  in  imagination 
They  will  be  in  the  old  home,  surveying  the  old  garden,  but 
without  an  idea  of  its  dullness.  But  there  will  be  real 
meetings  as  well  of  brothers,  sisters,  parents,  children,  rela¬ 
tives.  and  friends,  who  are  moved  with  a  desire  to  be 
together  at  Christmas  time.  While  this  thought,  which  is 
Rappy  and  seasonable,  is  with  me,  I  will  conclude,  with  the 
wish  that  every  reader  of  the  Journal,  both  in  the  garden  and 
■out,  may  spend  Yuletide  in  a  manner  congenial  to  him. — H. 
Landscape  Gardening.' 
( Continued,  from  pciqe  539.) 
John  Evelyn,  scholar  and  philosopher,  bom  1620,  died 
1706,  was  the  first  in  this  country  to  treat  gardening  and 
planting  scientifically.  His  grounds  at  Says  Court,  near 
Deptford,  where  he  resided  during  a  great  part  of  his  life, 
attracted  much  attention  and  admiration  on  account  of  the 
number  of  foreign  plants  which  he  reared  in  them,  and  the 
tidy  order  in  which  they  were  kept.  The  Czar,  Peter  the 
Great,  was  tenant  of  that  mansion  for  about  three  months 
after  the  removal  of  Evelyn  to  another  estate  ;  and  the  old 
man  was  mortified  by  the  gross  manner  in  which  his 
house  and  gardens  were  abused  by  the  Russian  potentate 
and  his  retinue.  It  was  one  of  Peter’s  amusements  to 
demolish  a  most  glorious  and  impenetrable  Holly  hedge  by 
riding  through  it  on  a  wheelbarrow.  We  know  that  at  the 
present  moment  there  is  a  great  Russian  (the  Grand  Duke 
Michael)  in  occupation  of  the  fine  mansion  and  gardens  of 
Keele  Hall,  Staffordshire,  where  to  my  knowledge  there  is 
also  a  very  fine,  double  planted,  high  Holly  hedge.  It  is 
sincerely  to  be  hoped  that  this  Grand  Duke  will  be  more 
respectful  of  Mr.  Sneyd’s  hedge  than  was  the  eccentric  Peter 
of  Mr.  Evelyn’s. 
Evelyn  wrote  his  “  Sylva  ”  in  1664,  which  was  a  discourse 
of  forest  trees  and  the  propagation  of  timber  in  His  Majesty’s 
(Charles  II.)  dominions.  This  work,  aided  by  the  King’s 
example,  stimulated  the  landlords  to  plant  an  immense 
number  of  Oak  trees,  which  a  century  after  proved  of  the 
greatest  service  to  the  nation  in  the  construction  of  ships 
of  war.  For  this  purpose  Oak  and  any  other  timber  is  now 
absolutely  useless  for  naval  purposes — timber  giving  place 
to  iron — but  if  iron  ships  are  so  easily  broken  in  two — the 
torpedo-destroyer  Cobra,  for  instance — who  knows  but  some 
genius  of  the  Edison  type  may  again  in  some  way  so 
revolutionise  the  fighting  methods  of  war  that  Oak  for  ship¬ 
building  purposes  may  again  come  into  use  1  Be  that  as  it 
may,  we  heartily  acknowledge  our  gratefulness  to  Evelyn 
for  .being  the  spirited  instigator  of  so  many  beautiful  Oak 
woods  being  planted  throughout  the  country,  without  which 
we  fear  much  of  the  sylvan  beauty  we  now  enjoy  would  be 
absent,  and  the  landscape  of  to-day  might  present  a  rather 
thin,  miserable,  and  naked  appearance.  Again  thanking 
Evelyn  for  what  he  has  done  for  improving  the  beauty  of 
our  country,  we  might  perhaps  be  allowed  here  to  throw 
out  the  hint  that  we  are  at  this  moment  sadly  in  want  of 
another  Evelyn  to  again  stimulate  some  of  our  landed  pro¬ 
prietors  to  do  more  planting  and  less  depletion  of  their 
woods  and  groves  by  such  severe  annual  thinnings  which 
we  so  frequently  see  going  on  during  the  spring  months  of 
the  year. 
William  Kent,  an  ingenious  artist,  bom  in  1685,  originally 
a  coach-painter,  left  that  to  study  the  principles  of  design, 
for  which  purpose  he  went  to  Rome  and  studied  under  some 
of  the  best  masters  ;  but  as  a  painter,  we  are  told,  he  never 
attained  celebrity.  It  is  as  the  inventor  of  the  modem  style 
of  landscape  gardening  that  we  know  Kent,  and  for  which 
in  his  day  he  obtained  great  fame.  He  it  was  who  first 
broke  up  the  old  uniformity  of  straight  lines  and  correspond¬ 
ing  parts,  and  threw  wood,  water,  rocks,  and  glades  into 
those  beautiful  forms  presented  to  us  by  Nature,  at  once 
rendering  graceful,  pleasing,  and  attractive  that  which  was 
before  stiff  and  formal. 
Launcelot  Brown,  better  known  as  “  Capability  ”  Brown, 
another  successful  and  celebrated  landscape  gardener,  was 
bom  in  1705,  and  would  be  about-  thirty-three  years  of  age 
when  Kent  died.  Brown  would  therefore  have  an  excellent 
opportunity  of  profiting  by  Kent’s  practice,  and  no  doubt  he 
also  had  read  and  studied  Evelyn’s  Sylva  very  much  to  his 
advantage.  Therefore  we  think  we  are  right  in  giving  ample 
credit  to  Evelyn,  Kent,  and  Brown  for  initiating,  or,  we 
might  say,  uplifting,  our  present  natural  free  and  graceful 
style  of  landscape  gardening  out  of  the  stiff,  clipped,  and 
balanced  formalities  of  the  Dutch  school,  which  was  so  pre¬ 
valent  prior  to  their  time  in  the  pleasure  grounds  of  the 
nobility  and  gentry  of  this  country.  Humphrey  Repton,  a 
private  gentleman,  bom  at  Bury  St.  Edmunds  in  1752,  died 
1818,  had  a  try  in  various  ways  to  make  a  living.  Finally 
he  adopted  that  of  landscape  gardening,  in  which  he 
*  A  lecture  delivered  by  Mr.  William  Miller,  F.R.H.S.,  land¬ 
scape  gardener  and  nurseryman,  Berkswell,  before  the  Birmingham 
and  Midland  Counties  Gardeners’  Mutual  Improvement  Association, 
November  4th,  1901. 
