December  17,  1903. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER, 
561 
To  send  out  such  a  periodical  uncut  is  to  be  much  behind  the 
times.  I  receive  a  good  many  similar  publications  from  the 
.several  agricultural  .societies,  but  the  ‘'Journal  of  the  R.H.S.” 
is  the  only  one  not  machine  cut. — R. 
- - 
Gardeners  and  Situations. 
It  is  distressing  to  learn  that  when  it  i.s  made  widely  known 
by  advertisement  or  otherwise  that  a  situation  of  any  value  to  be 
filled  by  a  gardener  is  vacant,  the  applications  for  it  are  counted 
by  scores,  and  sometime.s  by  hundreds.  That  fact  shows  that, 
like  many  other  vocations,  gardening  has  its  labour  troubles,  and 
finds  the  supply  to  so  greatly  exceed  the  demand.  We  do  not 
hear  of  any  suggestion  that  garden  places  are  becoming  gradu¬ 
ally  fewer.  That  some  old  places  have  been  gradually  broken 
up,  and  are  now  attractive  .suburbs  or  building  sites  there  can  be 
no  doubt ;  but  even  in  such  cases  myriads  of  small  garden  situa¬ 
tions  have  been  created  that  were  readily  filled.  They  are  not 
high  class  places,  such  as  need  a  first-class  head,  but  they  furnish 
occupation  for  very  many  men  whose  gardening  knowledge 
if  limited,  at  least  suffices  to  enable  them  to  work  these  small 
places  very  nicely,  and  in  a  way  that  gives  general  satisfaction. 
But  it  is  in  relation  to  the  more  pretentious  gardens — the  prizes 
of  the  profession — that  the  excess  of  supply  is  so  gravely  felt.  It 
has  been  said  that  this  dearth  of  situation.^  is  partly  due  to  the 
fact  that  those  in  possession  stick  to  them.  That  is  a  good 
rea,son,  seeing  that  if  those  in  po.sse.ssion  left  places  more 
frequently  they  would  still  be  items  in  the  number  which  make  up 
the  great  body  out  of  work,  or,  at  lea.st,  out-of-place  gardeners. 
Gardeners  in  posses.sion  of  places,  if  they  be  worth  anything,  do 
hold  on  to  them  ;  but  this  is  more  because  that  the  liolders  realise 
the  difficulty  which  besets  the  vocation  in  gettinj2:  other  places. 
They  are,  therefore,  wise  to  make  the  best  of  even  a  bad 
position,  if  getting  out  of  it  may  but  lead  to  worse  things.  That 
there  are  places  which,  to  good  gardeners,  are  veritable  pur¬ 
gatories,  is  but  too  certain.  Where  they  are  often  being  vacated 
it  needs  but  little  knowledge  to  understand  their  character. 
The.se  are  places  good  men  should  endeavour  to  avoid. 
One  of  the  changes  now  proceeding  bv  which  gardening  is 
materially  affected  is  found  in  the  clisplacement  of  the  old 
I'inglish  gentrj'  and  nobility,  whose  ancestors  have  been  patrons 
of  gardening,  and  have  always  treated  gardeners  with  high  con¬ 
sideration,  by  a  new  race  of  owners  or  occupants,  men  whose 
wealth  has  been  made  in  commerce,  in  mines,  in  all  kinds  of 
trading  enterprises,  and  who'  now  deem  to  settle  down  and  play 
the  part  of  English  countr}^  gentlemen.  Many  of  these  have 
brought  wealthinto  the  old  gardens  tliey  have  become  the  occupants 
or  po.s.sessors  of.  When  to  this  has  been  allied  good  gardening 
tastes  (and  happily  it  is  often  so),  their  money  has  been  spent 
freely  ;  new  gardens  are  made,  new  glass  houses  and  other  build¬ 
ings  erected,  sometimes,  indeed,  of  a  trulj'  palatial  nature.  It  is 
in  such  cases  as  these  gardening  has  had  an  impetus  given  to  it 
wliich  was  badly  needed.  If  1113113^  of  our  old  families  have  grov.  n 
rich,  many  more  have  become  too  poor  to  continue  to  occiqyv  their 
old  ancestral  mansions  and  gardens;  and  the  wealth3'  traders  in 
taking  their  places  have  spent  liberall3",  where  the  others  had 
severely  to  retrench. 
Probably  it  will  be  found  that  the  incursion  of  the  wealthy 
commercial  element  into  country  life,  and  especiall3’  garden  life, 
has  been  good  for  horticulture.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
whether  the  places  be  good  or  bad  very  many  have  been  found  for 
first-class  gardeners  that  otherwise  must  have  been  vacant,  or 
become  the  charges  of  head  labourers  onhv-  But  even  if  there  be 
an  increase  in  the  number  of  gardeners’  situatiens  or  not  (and 
that  is  so  far  as  relate.s  to  good  places  very  problematical),  at 
least  it  is  certain  that  there  is  no  cessation  in  the  manufacture 
cf  gardeners.  Year  after  3-ear  young  men  go  into  gardening  in 
so  man3'  diverse  ways:  in  nurseries,  in  market-growing  estab¬ 
lishments.  in  botanic  gardens,  and  colleges,  and  even  the 
vocation  is  being  very  determinedl3'  invaded  1)3'  women,  who 
exhibit  a  degree  of  energy,  perseverance,  and  earnestness  in  their 
efforts  to  learn,  that  may  well  give  pause  to  the  young  men,  their 
competitors. 
But  the  great  manufactories  of  gardeners  are,  after  all,  the 
]:rivate  gardens  of  the  kingdom.  In  each  of  the.se,  with  a  head 
who  has  held  tenure  perhaps  .some  twent3'  or  thirty  3mars.  there 
is  passing  through  the  gardens,  as  being  traiimd,  perhaps  in  the 
period  stated  some  fifty  to  sixt3'  youths,  all  of  whom  look  forward 
to  the  day  when  they  too  .shall  become  heads.  Such  hopes  never 
can  be  fully  realised,  unless  those  who  hold  them  are  content 
to  take,  later  on,  single-handed  situations,  or  when-  just  one  or 
two  labourers  are  kent.  There  is  just  now  in  the  kingdom,  no 
doubt,  for  every  head  gardener  five  or  six  3’oung  gardeners,  and 
heads  go  on  increasing  the.  numbers  in  the  vocation  without  an.y 
consideration  as  to  the  future  prospects  of  those  they  thus  profess 
to  introduce  into  the  great  fraternity  of  gardeners.  When  to 
this  abounding  superfluity  i.s  added  the  fact  that  at  the  present 
moment  too,  there  are  hundreds  of  tirst-class  gardeners  seeking 
vainl.v  for  .situations,  the  grave  position  of  the  gardener  is 
accentuated.  We  have  a  great  need  for  a  reduction  cf  the  exist¬ 
ing  .suppl3'  of  gardeners,  especiall.v  of  .voiing  ones,  and  head 
gardeners  should,  in  justice  to  the  3’ouths  they  engage  and  train, 
seek  to  reduce  the  redundanc.v,  keeping  the  best  and  sending  the 
worst  into  other  vocations.  The  matter  demands  grave  thought 
and  consideration,  to  be  followed  by  remedial  action. — .Surrey. 
Commercial  Travellers. 
“A.  N.  Noyed’s”  remarks  were  presnmabl.y  made  for  the  .sole 
purpose  of  opening  a  controvers.3^ — he  never  could  have  expected 
an.vthing  but  a  dressing  down !  He  must  have  an  extremely 
eas.v  situation  to  be  able  to  spend  his  valuable  time  in  adopting 
a  stratagem  to  defeat  the  ends  and  aims  cf  “  Mr.  Nuisance.” 
Surel.v  it  should  have  been  an  absurdl.y  easy  task  to  do  better 
than  “  work  dodges  ”  with  one  .so  utterl.y  devoid  of  tact  and 
courtes.v  as  was  poor  “  Mr.  Nuisance.”  I  cannot  but  think  that 
such  a  representative,  however,  exists  onl.y  in  “A.  N.  Noyed’s” 
imagination.  C'ertainl.v  no  firm  of  ordinary  prescience  would 
place  such  a  man  on  the  road  in  the  first  place! 
If  it  did,  however,  in  some  error  of  judgment  common  to  all, 
he  would  be  quickly  taken  off  again,  for  it  is  obvious  that  tact 
on  the  part  of  a  traveller  is  the  first  essential  factor  to  that 
gentleman’s  ultimate  success,  and  therefore  the  sooner  he  is  kept 
at  home  the  more  work  is  likel.v  to  be  got  through  diurnallv'  b.v 
such  gai'deners  as  “A.  N.  Noyed,”  as  the  temptation  to  pla.v 
human  draughts  would  be  removed,  for  there  would  be  no  one  to 
pla.v  the  counter  move. 
I  venture  to  think  that  commercial  travellers  generall.v  are 
able  to  pa3^  more  respect  to  the  personalit.v  of  gardeners  as  a 
whole  than  “  A.  N.  Noyed  ”  is  dispo-sed  to  grant  to  a  solitar.v  indi¬ 
vidual,  who  (for  the  sake  of  argument  we  will  sa.v)  presumes  on 
the  title  of  “Commercial  Traveller.”  Primaril.v,  courtei.s,v : 
secondl3^  the  courage  to  say'  “  No  ”  to  a.  canvasser  for  orders,  are 
the  two  graces  that  .single  out  tlie  professional  gardener  as  a 
rule  from  such  examples  as  “A.  N.  No.yed.”  Ma.y  gardeners  who 
are  gentlemen,  and  travellers  who  can  treat  them  as  such,  con¬ 
tinual  l.v  flourish  ! — Crate  Egg. 
— — 
Chrysanthemum  Critique  Controverted. 
In  the  interest  of  some  cf  your  less  experienced  readers,  I 
beg  leave  to  point  out  that  your  correspondent.  "  Sadoc  ” 
(page  532),  is  mistaken  in  describing  Mrs.  T.  TV.  Pockett  as  a 
sport  from  Nellie*  Pockett.  I  must  also  contradict  soine  other  of 
his  assertions.  Lily  Mountford  has  not  lost  its  rose  colour;  and 
if  J.  R.  Epton  has  lost  its  rich  yellow,  what  colour  is  it  now? 
Mrs.  Barkle.v  is  not  a  failure  ;  neither  is  Florence  Molyneaux  when, 
pronerl.v  grown.  W.  R.  Church  has  been  shown  in  splendid  form 
this"  season,  so  that  any  lack  of  development  mmst  be  purely  a 
matter  of  culture.  Mrs.  J.  Lewis,  M.  Louis  Rem3'.  and  Le  Grand 
Dragon  have  all  been  shown  in  good  form  tliis  year;  and,  given 
a  better  season,  there  is  no  reason  why  they  may  not  be  as  good 
as  ever.  If  Mildred  Ware  is  “  medium  sized.”  and  Godfrey’s 
Pride  “  too  small,”  where  are  we  getting  to?  And  if  Madame  R. 
Cadbury  is  “  a  thing  of  the  past,”  it  is  not  a  very  far  distant  past, 
as  may  be  -seen  by  the  accounts  of  recent  shows.  T.  Carrington 
and  Australie  are  still  among  the  largest,  and  the  “  Heroine  from 
the  Isle  of  Man  ”  is  quite  out  of  the  hairy  section,  though  it  might 
take  the  place  of  Duchess  of  Sutherland  as  a  Japanese  incurved. — 
R.  Barne.s,  Wych  Road,  Malvern. 
I  must  take  up  the  cudgels  on  behalf  of  some  of  the  so-called 
unsuccessful  varieties  mentioned  by  “  Sadoc  on  page  532. 
First  of  all  he  sa3's  W.  R.  Church  has  not  been  consistent  this 
5ea.soii  Perhaps  not,  but  it  was  mentioned  twenty-one  tunes  in 
reports  in  the  “  J.  of  H.”  of  19th  ult..  and  thirteen  tunes  in  the 
issue  of  November  12.  I  always  understood  that  the  green  tinge 
311  the  tips  of  the  petals  constituted  one  of  the  chief  charms  of 
tliis  v9.riGty.  In  tlio  iin&lysis  of  lust  your  it  liouclocl  tho  ^ 
M  L  Reiny,  anotlier  of  tiie  unsuccessful  ones,  and  Mrs.  G.  Mile- 
lain  Then  caiiieF.  Molyiieux,  Mrs.  Barkley.  Australie,  Madame 
L’aniot,  and  Mrs.  W.  Mease,  all  umsuccessful  one.s. 
I  have  seen  M.  Chenon  de  Leche  shown  well  this  season,  and 
^ee  it  won  the  award  for  premier  bloom  at  West  Hartlepool  and 
received  twenty-three  out  of  twenty-seven  votes  at  the  last 
ludit  J  R.  Epton  I  find  mentioned  seven  tunes  111  reports  of 
19th  lilt.,  and  Guy  Hamilton  and  L.  Mountford  have  each  won 
certificates  for  premier  bloom.  . 
Mrs.  J.  Lewis  is  far  from  played  out  3'et,  and  given  proper 
Ireatment  is  .still  one  of  the  very  best  whites,  and  was  marvel- 
loiisly  well  shown  at  Cardiff,  and  I  venture  to  prophesy  that 
ivheii  the  result  of  the  poll  is  declared  many  of  "  Sacffics  so- 
called  failures  and  varieties  of  the  past  will  be  in  the  first  fifty. 
ind  some  of  them  nearer  the  top  than  the  bottom. 
I  cannot  find  Mrs.  Clayton  catalogued,  but  J.  E.  C  layton  is  a 
sport  from  Eva  Knowles,  and  Mrs.  I .  T\ .  Pockett  is  not  a 
qiort  from  Nellie  Pockett,  neither  can  it  by  any  stretch  of  iiiiagi- 
iiation  be  classed  an  “incurved  Japanese.”— A.  H. 
*  Numbers  of  letters  have  unavoiclably  had  to  be  held  over.— Ed. 
