ART. XII. On a new Verge Cutter, and Orange Tub, invented by MR. CHARLES MAC INTOSH, Gardener to Sir Thomas Baring, Bart. M.P. and also on a new Mode of preserving Cauliflowers, by the same, in a Letter to Mr. Mackay, of the Belgrave and Clapton Nurseries.

Dear Sir,

According to promise, I now send you the edging iron (fig.28.) which I have described to you, and which I hope you will

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find to answer to my description; of course some allowance will be made for the first trial, as men are apt to be prejudiced against new tools; but I can pledge my word, that I will myself (notwithstanding my infirmities) cut as much in one day with this instrument as I could in four, or I may say in five days, with the instrument in general use; any of my men are most willing to do the same. In all cases, excepting when there is a long straight line to be edged, a garden line is unnecesary: where a line must be used it will perhaps be best to place it so that it will run between the wheel and the coulter, or cutting part of the machine (a). A certain degree of pressure is necessary upon the handle where the ground is hard, and the kneed coulter (b) may be used where the edgings are not very regular. When in use I have them daily sharpened, and the operator takes them out in his pocket in the morning, and when one loses its cutting edge, he takes it off and places on another, and so on.

The model of the orange boxes (fig. 29.) I have also sent. I hope you will approve of them; you will observe that they are different from Sir A. Hume's, or those used on the Continent; they are tapered a little, which gives them a lighter appearance than when made square. The advantage that this sort of box has over those in use is, that you can with so little trouble take them to pieces and examine the roots of the trees, remove old, and replace by fresh mould, prune the roots, see whether they are in a proper state, as regards moisture, &c. The last particular I think very material to their health, the sides

folding down: you can, as often as may be judged necessary, paint or pitch the inside of the boxes, which will, if properly attended to, make them last, if made of good wood, for twenty years. Another advantage they have over the boxes alluded to is, that you can take the trees out of one box and place them in others without taking them to pieces, which you cannot do with the others, as they are made of strong framed posts so joined together that it is impossible to take out your trees; and besides, only two of their sides are moveable. In taking this box to pieces you have only to pull up the two iron bars, and gently pull out two of the sides (a); the remaining sides lift up. I generally fill up all the bottom of the tubs with broken brick, tiles, and turf for draining, so as to be level with the top of the bottom bars.

If you think these two things worth Mr. Loudon's notice, you will particularly oblige me by sending them to him.

I have been able to keep cauliflower for a length of time by cutting them in a dry day, stripping off all the leaves, and then burying them among bog mould. The idea first struck me in Scotland, from considering that bog mould was antiseptic, and capable of resisting putrefaction, particularly if excluded from atmospheric air. I covered some heads of cauliflower in July, under the rubbish taken from the bottom of an old peat stack, and in November following, found them still fit for use. I pointed out to your brother some this year at Stratton, that had been laid up six weeks, and still good; this I was, in consequence of the long drought, obliged to do; and for weeks it was sent to table, and found as good as if newly cut it is necessary to wash them well, as they are very black when taken out.

Stratton Park, November 29, 1825.

I am, dear Sir, &c.

CHARLES MAC INTOSH.

ART. XIII. On the Remuneration of Gardeners.

BURNARD, ESQ. of Eden Grove, Holloway.

Dear Sir,

By I. P.

I HAVE taken your first number of the Gardener's Magazine, with which, on the whole, I am tolerably pleased. I did intend to have sent you, as I promised long ago, a plan and specification of a master gardener's house, seed-room, and office; such a one as appears to me suitable for gardeners, from 60 to 100l. per annum, exclusive of board wages, &c., and which might be varied for salaries above and below that sum: but yesterday I had occasion to dine with a brother architect, where one of the company related some things respecting the way in which gardeners are remunerated, that quite altered my determination; and I now think that to begin by giving a plan of a house, before first acertaining that the intended occupant is able to make use of it, would be little better than an insult to his feelings.

I respect all industrious men, and would have them all placed in comfortable circumstances; but I particularly respect gardeners, because, as far as my experience goes, there is no class of rural operatives, or masters, whose moral character stands so high, and whose remuneration is so low. If we take a carpenter, bricklayer, mason, or smith, and compare the wages usually paid them through their apprenticeship, and while they are journeymen, with the wages of a gardener during these states of progression; and compare also their intellectual state, the difference between the two classes is almost incredible. A bricklayer who cannot write, and who has not the least knowledge of figures, or geometry, receives from five to seven shillings a-day, as the common price given by master builders. A journeyman gardener in one of the first nurseries, who has gone through a course of practical geometry and land surveying; has a scientific knowledge of Botany, and has spent his days and his nights in reading books connected with his profession, gets no more than two shillings or two and sixpence a day. The Horticultural Society, it is true, very humanely give 14s. to 18s. per week; but you may recollect, in the spring of 1824, that an Irish lad working in Jenkins's nursery, was summoned before the Mary-la-bonne police magistrates, to provide for an illegitimate child, and being required to allow the mother two or three shillings per week, assigned as a reason why he could not afford it, that his wages were only 10s. per week! The magistrate would not believe him; he had but a small plot of a garden, he said, but he paid the gardener who did it up 4s. a day: this unfortunate lad, therefore, had the

alternative of paying the money, going to prison, or marrying the girl; in the simplicity and goodness of his heart he chose the latter. A woe may be pronounced against the gardener who marries so prematurely; and it would be well, to have written upon the large gates of the Horticultural Society's garden at Chiswick, something like what Dante inscribes on the portal of hell:

"Lasciate ogni amor voi che entrate,"

or otherwise establish within them one of those "Botteghe che hanno per frontespizio' — Qui si castrano i Ragazzi Giardiniere a buon mercato!"

With respect to master gardeners, to what class of gentlemen's servants, is there so much confided, and so little paid? Not to mention the general care of the kitchen garden and pleasure ground, it often happens that a gardener has two or three hundred men under his direction for executing improvements. The work of all these men, or their time, he has to measure, or to calculate; and perhaps 607. or 80l. a week passes through his hands for their payment; while he has not more than as many pounds a year for himself. Is there not something very extraordinary in this? Would any mercantile man or manufacturer consider it safe to entrust so much power in the hands of a man so ill paid, and consequently so exposed to the temptation of dishonesty? Yet how seldom do we hear of gardeners falling short in their accounts. So rarely does that happen, that I do not recollect of a single instance; this must be attributed to the high moral character of gardeners, which may be traced in part to the recluse way in which they are brought up, and in part to the nature of their profession; even Bailiffs, or as you call them, Agronomes, are more apt to deviate from the moral principle than gardeners; probably from the influence of attending markets, to which, it may be said, every person going as a buyer or seller, goes with an intention to deceive, more or less, the person he may have to deal with.

However, I am deviating from my purpose, and, I fear, weakening the force of what I have to say. It is briefly this; one of the richest if not the very richest nobleman in England, has just parted with his gardener upon the subject of wages. This gardener, it was stated where I dined, is among the most intelligent of those of your country; he went to the situation about seven years ago; and besides doing the common routine of a nobleman's gardens, he laid out an immense park and pleasure ground, from his own designs; and that in such a way as to give universal satisfaction. The place, in