GOOD GARDENING.* OF all the arts of prime utility, none
is perhaps less thoroughly understood by us, and therefore less efficiently practised, than that of Gardening. This assertion may at first sight seem un- warranted, when the vast extent of English ground which is given up to the cultivation of fruit, vegetables, and flowers is taken
into consideration, and when we think of the almost universal wish for the possession of a garden, whether large or small, and yet it is a fact which may challenge contradiction, those things which every one is supposed to know being just such as are the least studied, and in the practice of which a sort of happy- go-lucky method, largely derived from precedent and oral tradi- tion, is apt to be followed, without the least knowledge of the principles which should be the basis of work. With respect to gardens, if we except the handsome pleasure-grounds of the man of fortune, which are kept in order at the cost of a moderate in- come, and the well-tilled acres of the market-gardener, which, being his livelihood, must be kept of necessity in a state of per- petual productiveness, are not waste and mismanagement the general rule in the kitchen department, and poverty and sameness in that set apart for flowers? We have also perpetual complaints. of the expense of keeping a garden, and are constantly told that it is cheaper to procure fruit and vegetables from the market than to rear them; and the reason of this is that the garden, in ninety- nine cases out of a hundred, does not get fair-play. The farmer looks upon it as he does upon his poultry-yard, as beneath his notice, grudgingly bestowing upon it, perhaps to please his wife, two or three times a year a few days' labour, and a scanty supply of manure ; while, in the classes immediately above him, it is handed over to a man whose ignorance and want of taste are only exceeded by his conceit, and who prides himself upon producing insipid- monstro- sities in the shape of fruits and vegetables out of season, or upon winning the prize at flower-shows for a few plants that have occu- pied most of the time that should have been devoted to general culti- vation. As to the poor man, when he is lucky enough to have a garden, what use does he make of it? In the great majority of cases, he only grows carelessly a few of the coarser vegetables, in- stead of providing, as he might do, himself and his family with a considerable portion of delicate and wholesome food. The garden, fairly dealt with, should be a most profitable adjunct to the mansion, house, or cottage ; and where it is not so, the case is- purely the result of mismanagement, arising from an apathy which is quite incomprehensible. It is impossible to conceive why we should be content to import our fruit, vegetables, and early flowers as we do our eggs, from Belgium and from France, when we might with a little trouble have an abundance of our own, and when the production of them might also be a distinct source of profit.
We hear a great deal of the need of employments for women, why should not young girls develop their muscles, strengthen their constitutions, and embark in the pleasing as well as useful occupation of gardening, having first, of course, made a special study of what they are going to undertake? We know that there are plenty of amateur lady gardeners, and that they are usually most successful cultivators ; to these we say, "go on and prosper ;" but there is room for other and distinct classes Many of the operations of gardening are especially suited to women, for they require neat- handedness, careful manipulation, and minute and delicate atten- tion. The sowing and the saving of seeds, the raising of cuttings, budding, grafting, hybridising, the training of bush, pyramid, and espalier fruit-trees, the gathering and packing of fruit and flowers for the market, and most of the multifarious operations of the propagating and plant-houses, might be most efficiently done by women ; and granting that men would be required for the severer labours of digging, trenching, manuring and draining, and for any other heavy work, it would very seldom be necessary to employ skilled gardeners, for the lady-we:kers would of course possess sufficient knowledge to be able to direct and superintend every operation. There would certainly b.; nothing menial in such an occupation, and we do not see why the daughters of gentlemen in reduced circumstances should not seriously under- take it, not merely to the- very great advantage of their own families, but also, perhaps, later, in some profitable organisation where young women of the poorer classes could be trained and employed under them. If some one would bring systematic gardening into fashion, we should not only hear very little of the need for stimulants and the other weaknesses of young-ladyhood, but we should no longer see so many weedy borders, unpruned * A Plain Guide to Good Gardening. By Samuel Wood (late gardener to Sir B. P. Wrey, Bart.). London Crosby, Lockwood, and Co. and unfruitful vines, neglected and unproductive kitchen-gardens, and greenhouses devastated by aphides and thrips.
Schools of cookery have been instituted with a considerable amount of success ; we recommend a school for practical garden- ing, with lectures upon agricultural chemistry, at which young women might learn, at all events, the rudiments of what they would require to know ; and we throw out the suggestion to those ladies who so anxiously desire to benefit their own sex, and also to our horticultural societies, which could so easily undertake the experiment on a suitable scale. In the meantime, however, in- structors are by no means wanting. Books on gardening are .multitudinous and continually on the increase, and the one which has just been put forward by Mr. Wood, and which he calls "a plain guide to good gardening," is one of the beat and clearest which we have met with for some time. Although only a second edition, this work is to all intents and purposes a new one, so many and important are the additions to the original. Compendious, but neither too diffuse nor too technical, and quite sufficiently illus- trated, this little guide is really a manual from which the willing and attentive learner may gain ample direction. Written by a practical man of thirty years' experience, it is intended to instruct not only the florist, the market and landscape-gardener, and the competitor for prizes, but also the cottager and the lady who wishes to be her own gardener, the aim of the writer being not to puzzle the reader, but to simplify every operation to him. The pruning of the vine, for instance, is denuded of all the mystery and difficulty usually supposed to be attached to it, and brought within the comprehension and practice of every one. Mr. Wood divides his work into three books. The first treats of the kitchen, fruit, and flower-garden ; the second of soils and their management, the rotation of crops, garden structures, and modes of laying-out ; and the third of seeds and sowing, planting, transplanting, and weeding, garden enemies, and protection from frost. As a conclusion, we have a list of technical terms and an index. Of course, the general nature of the information contained in Mr. Wood's book differs but little from that contained in other works on gardening, but we like its arrangement, and there are various points in it which are specially his own. It must be obvious to every one that an essential requisite in good gardening is the use of judgment. A clear know- ledge of one's requirements is the starting-point, and next follows the adaptation of means to the end. How often do we see crops cultivated which are out of all proportion to the size of the es- tablishment for which they are designed, immense waste being the immediate result, and a proportionate deficiency at a later season the remoter one; whereas were smaller quantities planted and kept up in due succession, the house would be always well supplied. In small villa gardens, too, a great mistake is made in the endeavour to grow something of everything, instead of aiming, as Mr. Wood advises, at the production of only a few of the earliest and best kinds of vegetables, so as to have them when they are dear and not easily obtainable, leaving the general supply to be purchased when the neighbouring markets are well stocked. Of course, however, all these matters must be regulated by situation and facilities for purchase, but as a general rule, the small garden should always be devoted to the choicest kind of whatever crop may be cultivated, and made to produce that crop at the season when it is of most value. The same holds good with flowers. It is better not to grow too many, but to grow those which are selected as nearly as possible to perfection ; and it is perfectly possible to keep even a little place perennially gay, without the aid of glass houses or frames, if the cultivator understands how to select his flowers. The lazy amateur, whose only idea is to have recourse to the nurseryman at the beginning of summer, in order to fill with gaudy bedding-plants the deplorable-looking circles and squares which he has left during the winter tenantless and forlorn, is wholly unaware of the beautiful effects which can be produced by a judicious arrangement of hardy perennials, such as Mr. Wood describes in what he calls "the everlasting flower- garden." By selecting plants with protracted flowering qualifi- cations, such as the herbaceous Phloxes, so brilliant and varied, the Antirrhinum, the Pansy, CEnothera, Veronica, Iberia, Pentstemon, Pinks, Carnations, Lilies, Wallflowers, Pleonias, Ane- mones, Campanulas, Japonicas, Clematis, Delphiniums, Salvias, not to mention_roses, chrysanthemums, hollyhocks, and dozens of sweet, old-fashioned flowers and flowering shrubs, there is scarcely a month in the year which would not afford the cheerful sight of something in blossom, while from March to November such a garden should be almost a sheet of bloom. Those who are fortunate enough to have glass and a reserve garden at their com- mand can, of course easily improve upon this arrangement, by removing the occupants of some of the beds as soon as they begin to decline, and replacing them by geraniums and other tender and beautiful plants. Mr. Wood insists, of course, very strongly on the necessity of good drainage for a garden, and gives some simple and efficacious plans for carrying it into effect. In his chapter on soils he is careful to explain the difference between peat and bog- earth, a difference which is rarely remembered, it would seem, by the amateur gardener, who is under the delusion that any kind of black, rich-looking stuff brought from a swamp will make his rhododendrons and azaleas flourish. Even in good pe,ats, rich in silica, lime, pure sand, and nutritious loam, there is a difference, and the peat of Epping Forest near the royal oak is commended as the very best of all, being actually capable of growing cucumbers.
We have mentioned Mr. Wood's plain directions for the culti- vation of vines in houses ; he also shows how to ripen grapes successsully out of doors, and is equally clear and precise about the growth of other fruits and the various modes of training them. One hint, by the way, may here be given to our readers, namely, that if they want fine strawberries, they must be very careful to nip off every runner as soon as it attains the length of three inches. But one of his most interesting suggestions relates to what he calls speculative gardening, namely, the raising of new species of plants, an employment hitherto con- fined almost exclusively to the nurseryman, but which Mr. Wood would like to see taken up and developed by the amateur gardener, speaking of it not merely as a most interesting occupation, but also as a certain source of profit. As he carefully explains how the process of hybridisation should be carried on, the lady florist will have no difficulty in making herself mistress of the matter. On the subject of "window plants," by which he means not plants that must be first raised and grown till they are in flower in a greenhouse, and afterwards brought into a sitting-room, but those which can be propagated, grown, and flowered in a window, the author gives a great deal-of information, which, if followed, must result in the production of plants suitable to any situation ; and he also adds valuable hints for the construction of plant-cases, and for the arrangement of conservatories, of which latter he justly complains for the want of taste so frequently shown in their deco- ration. Indeed, as a whole, we may very safely commend Mr. Wood's book to all those who aspire to really good gardening, being satisfied that its principles are sound and its directions practical, and that those who take it for their manual will be in no danger whatever of being led astray.
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