The gardener, to understand his business well, and to be capable of
undertaking the management of a gentleman’s garden and grounds, should
not only be perfect in the ordinary business, and the regular routine
of digging, cropping, and managing a kitchen garden, but should be also
well versed in the nature of soils, manures, and composts, the best
methods of propagating plants, shrubs, and trees, the management of the
hot-house, green-house, conservatory, hot-beds; and the culture, not
only of indigenous, but also of foreign and exotic productions.
The gardener, on first coming to his situation, will endeavour to
ascertain the nature and present state of the soil. There are scarcely
any of the ordinary esculent or culinary vegetables that will not
require, at least, a depth of two spits of well cultivated earth;
shrubs and trees much more; and this depth he should accordingly give
it by proper digging, trenching, and other means. The sub-strata, or
under soil, must also be considered, and articles fond of moisture
should be planted where the sub-stratum is of a clayey nature, and will
not suffer the moisture imbibed from above to pass off; while those
which require warm and dry situations, should be planted where the
under soil consists of sand or gravel, and will the more readily absorb
the moisture from above.
In small families, or in gardens not exceeding an acre, with a paddock
of three or four acres for a horse or cow, it is usual to keep but one
gardener, who, at an out-door salary of a guinea a week, performs all
the necessary work in the garden, milks the cow, feeds the poultry,
and, sometimes, takes care of the horse, his assistant being a jobbing
labourer during a few weeks of particular duty. These gardeners
generally consist of under gardeners from large establishments, or from
market gardeners near large towns; and the only questions which arise
between them and their employer, are the difficulties which they feel
at first in accommodating the practice on a large scale to that on a
small and economical one; but, when reconciled to this, no situation
is more independent and comfortable than that of the solitary and
accommodating gardener.
Gardeners generally prefer a sandy loam, of a nature not too binding in
summer, nor too retentive in winter.
Perhaps the best practical rules that can be given are the following,
from the best Treatise on Gardening.