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 60l. 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

short, is talked of, and we all know how proud Mr. P. is of the share he had in the architecture of the house. The gardener went there on wages which he felt to be low; but which he trusted would be raised as he displayed his talents. With the most honourable feelings he declined asking for an advance while the great works he had in hand were going on, least it might be considered as a sort of threat to leave in the midst of them; but when the whole was completed, he then respectfully represented to his employer that he found great difficulty in supporting himself, his wife, and three children on forty pounds a year, and eleven shillings a week board wages, for he had no perquisites, not even milk or a pig. The magnificent and generous nobleman, not more rich than pious, after several weeks' consideration offered an addition of 127. a year. Such is the liberality of a man who is said to have upwards of 100,000l. a-year. I make no reflections on the subject, but I think it is a fit case to be recorded in the Gardener's Magazine for the benefit of its practical readers. Had this gardener not been an honourable minded man, and enthusiastic in his profession, he never would have gone on for so many years with such extensive works, and with so paltry a remuneration. But he was wrapped up in the plans he was executing, and fancied that while erecting a column to his own fame as a gardener, he was also laying the surest foundation for an increase of salary, and, in short, for rendering his situation comfortable and permanent. At the moment, however, when he thought of beginning to reap the fruits of his labours, he was politely swept away from the place where he had spent his best years, and made his greatest exertions; and the small increase of salary that was denied him was more than included in the wages of his successor. Had this gardener not been an honest man, he might, out of the thousands a year that passed through his hands, in the multifarious payments of from 250 to 300 men weekly, easily have helped himself. Is not such treatment enough to tempt men to dishonesty? and is it not astonishing that gentlemen, when they hire servants, do not take these things into account in adjusting their remuneration? In a word, there is no class of servants so ill paid as gardeners, and none, who from their general good conduct, and the long study and attention required to excel in their profession, deserve to be so well paid. But I am confounding general views with the relation of a particular case, and shall, therefore, conclude for the present, by expressing a hope, that this case will teach them - never to trust to the gratitude or generosity of their employers for that which they are entitled to receive from them as matter of

right. But you shall hear from me again on this subjec before I send you any plans of gardener's houses.

Formosa Cottage, Holloway, 10th February, 1826.

Yours, very truly,

I. P. BURNARD.

ART. XIV. On the Beurré Spence and other new Pears, and on the art of keeping Fruit. By W. BRADDICK, Esq. F.H.S. of Boughton Mount, Kent.

Dear Sir,

In the account of new pears planted by me on Coxheath, as published by you in the first number of the Gardener's Magazine, there is an omission of the word Spence, after the word Beurré. As it cost me much trouble to obtain possession of a bud of this fine pear, I feel desirous that this omission should not go uncorrected, in order that the pear may be more generally known: the more especially as it has ripened well on espalier and standard trees, both in Surrey and Kent, which inclines me to think that it will prove a valuable acquisition to our fruit growers. Its history is as follows: - About seven or eight years ago, when I was just going to undertake my annual journey to the Continent, for the purpose of collecting buds of new fruits, my much esteemed and valued friend, Roger Wilbraham, Esq., happened to call on me; in the course of conversation we spoke of the advantages which posterity would derive from the labours of those horticulturists of the present day, who are now employed in raising new fruits, through the knowledge which is pretty generally disseminated of the sexual intercourse of plants. Mr. Wilbraham said, that it would be advantageous to discard all the bad, and to make a judicious selection of a moderate number of good table fruits; the time, labour, trouble, difficulty, and expence which would attend the bringing this matter about, owing to the many thousands of new fruits yearly coming forward, was then spoken of, as it is supposed that not more than two or three per cent. of any number of new fruits raised from seed, turn out to be superior in goodness to the parents from whence the seed is derived. Mr. Wilbraham then suggested to me that I should ask such amateurs of new fruits as I might visit during my intended journey, which of all the fruits raised by each individual were esteemed the best, and

confine my collection to sorts preferred. Upon my afterwards putting this question to M. Von Mans, professor of chemistry, agriculture, and rural economy, at the Uni sity of Louvain, who had raised 80,000 new pears, be very laconically replied, "Monsieur Braddick, that depends taste;" offering me at the same time, with a grace peruka: to our continental neighbours, a pinch of snuff out of an elegant box, which be said was presented to him by the king of Würtemberg, for a new pear which he had raised, and named la Roi de Würtemberg, on account of that king's liking it. I then asked him, if his own taste was called upon to decide the question, to which of all his new pears he would give the preference; he immediately replied, with much vivacity, "The Beurré Spence," and added, " this fruit, to my taste, is inestimable, and has no competitor."

I obtained from the learned professor a letter addressed to his gardener; he at the same time gave me leave to take buds out of his garden, which was fourteen miles from Louvain; upon my presenting M. V. M.'s letter to his gardener, a Walloon, I found great difficulty in making him understand me; he, however, readily gave me buds; but, as it appeared two years after, upon my fruiting those buds in England, the pear which he named Beurré Spence turned out to be the Gros Dillan, another new pear, very fine, and very large, fit for an espalier. Upon discovering that I had not yet got possession of the Beurré Spence, I went to Louvain again, and at length succeeded in establishing that pear in England. As soon as I fruited it, I sent specimens of the fruit, with a great many other new pears, to the Horticultural Society. Mr. Turner, the under secretary, pronounced it to be the very best of all the new Flemish pears yet raised; to which I have to add, that I accord with professor Van Mons and Mr. Turner, in my opinion of its merits, it being in my estimation the very best table fruit that we at present possess, for its season, which is from the middle of October to the middle of November. I gave buds or grafts of this pear to Mr. Young, Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Kirk, Mr. Ronalds, Mr. Curtis, Mr. Masters, Mr. Knevett, and many other nurserymen and gardeners, of whom I presume plants by this time may be had.

As I do not like to send you a barren letter, I herewith forward you specimens of two other new pears, which have heretofore been exhibited by me at a meeting of the Horticulture Society.

Beurré Pentacost. (Good. Cond.)

Poire d'Ananas. This pear is nearly allied in appearance