If this is the case, he can borrow, or for a few shillings buy, a good geography, with maps. A few hours each evening for a week, with this before him, and he will become familiar with the above places - not only with the localities, but with the climate, products, natural history, commerce, political institutions, etc. I feel confident that many gentlemen would tender freely the use of their library to the gardener, if he only manifested a desire to avail himself of its benefits. Some of my gardener readers may smile, perhaps, and shake their heads, saying, "You don't catch ray boss lending me books to waste his time with." I would say to such "bosses," if such there are, that they mistake their own interests. At any rate, I consider that an illiterate, coarse, vulgar man, is an evil on a place, especially where there are children; and such a course of reading that I would recommend, would not, as some may suppose, make him lazy, effeminate, or too sentimental.

We all know how susceptible and plastic the minds of the young are - more inclined to imbibe evil than good. Then children must be frequently out of doors, and in the garden; and they will soon learn, and make use of, all the vulgar slang they may hear from the gardener, or the other men. How necessary, then, it is that he should be a man of good address, moral and exemplary in his character, eschewing everything in the shape of vulgarity that would tend to contaminate or vitiate their taste. Let him converse with them about the plants and flowers, pointing out any remarkable characteristics or peculiarities they may possess; or bring them a nosegay from the woods, the genuine denizens of the place, tell them their names, and the meaning or etymology of these names. By these means he may possibly implant a taste for the study of botany - an accomplishment which it is to be regretted so few young ladies in this country attach to their catalogue of studies. Services and attentions of this kind rendered to the children, would not, I think, in all cases pass unnoticed by the parents.

The education and qualifications of gardeners ought to claim more attention at the present time than it does. Look at the numerous dwellings - country seats - that are springing up like magic in every direction. many of them first class houses, and grounds corresponding in extent The best talent the country affords is secured for the building - nay, even Europe perhaps is ransacked for a suitable design; but the garden and grounds - who is to be the architect of these? Alas! too frequently a person called a gardener, who receives for his services $25 per month, with a shanty to live in, and what few refuse vegetables he can pick up after the family is supplied; while perhaps the architect of the building is receiving eight or ten times that amount for the same space of time: and what is the result? Just what ought to be anticipated - the place in all probability divested of its primitive and natural beauty - fine old trees, which stood just in the proper places, cut down, elevations levelled, and other errors perpetrated; all which might have been avoided by the exercise of a little good taste and judgment, which might have been purchased for a few more dollars.

A good gardener, if he aims at landscape gardening, ought to possess the feelings of a poet, and the eye and taste of a good landscape painter. Some of my readers may think that I am now going too far. I do not expect a gardener to be a poet or a painter; but how can a person totally devoid of the above desiderata make a tasteful and judicious disposition of the place - the trees, knolls, dells, glens, shrubs, flowers, etc, so that they blend, contrast, harmonize, and afford for contemplation the greatest amount of pleasure the place is capable of. How can this, I say, be successfully accomplished by a man of uncultivated mind, who is incapable of being impressed by the beautiful in nature and art ? Why I have seen some gardeners pass and repass (without even noticing them) magnificent specimens of trees, etc., while the same objects would have struck others speechless with admiration. There are many gardeners who partake too much of the Wall street mania, viz., too much absorbed in dollars and cents, to the exclusion of much else which is equally valuable and important; they allow themselves barely enough food to satisfy the demands of nature, and only raiment sufficient to keep them from a state of nudity.

Now it is highly commendable in any man, especially a gardener, who is seldom overpaid, to be prudent provident, careful, and even rigidly economical in his expenditures; but when this is allowed to merge into meanness and parsimony, it contracts the soul, and mars and deforms his better nature. Such men can not see beauty or utility in anything unless real profit issues from it in the shape of dollars and cents. A gardener of this character can not afford to take a horticultural magazine, attend an exhibition, or go a few miles to see a fellow gardener or a nursery. "Cui bono" says he, "it wont pay." I would ask such a one, what pay or profit the naturalist, the botanist - the real lover of plants - expects, when he travels on foot long miles on hot, summer days, to seek his favorites in their native haunts? Ask one of these devotees, and he will tell you that the smiles of such little gems as Hepatica, Viola, Claytonia, Saxifraga, etc,. after a long and dreary winter, afford him as much real pleasure as the welcoming of a loved brother, sister, or any other dear friend, after a twelve-month's absence.

But the individual who makes the dollar his idol, is dead to such impressions.

It may be thought by some of my readers that I have been too severe on the garers alike - no, there are not a few who are a credit to themselves and an ornament to their profession; it is to the laggard, the self-sufficient, the drone, the sloven, that I would address myself. 'Tis these, often, who bring obloquy on the rest - one bad gardener will often be the means of bringing disgrace on the fraternity. Bouse up, then, brothers - for I am one of you, (bad or good I do not say,) my interests are identified with yours, - let us see if we can not raise ourselves a little in the social scale. I know one thing, and that is, if we are not the meanest men, we are the meanest paid men of any class in the country, considering what is required of us. But let us examine, and satisfy ourselves that this short pay is not the result of our own short-comings; let those who employ us see that we have mind and intellect, as well as bone and muscle. Till they perceive this, they will not consent to place us in any other class than the one we are arranged in at the commencement of this chapter.