LORD ROSEBERRY.

Hastings Standard, Volume XIII, Issue 4310, 13 November 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

LORD ROSEBERRY.

IN PRAISE OF GARDENING. Lord Roseberry made a charming speech on the subject of gardening and in praise of the gardener in opening the Cramond (Edinburgh) Horticultural Show last month. "Gardening is one of the enjoyments which one appreciates more and more with the advance of year," said Lord Roseberry. "When other amusements leave us from want of strength or aptitude, gardening remains to us an increasing enjoyment and pleasure. There is no literature more delightful than the literature of gardening. I do not mean the numerous catalogues, which are perhaps the most arid form that printed matter can assume, but I do mean the literature of gardening, from Bacon's famous essay downwards, literature that gives you a wish to he a gardener, and to taste the simple pleasures of the art. There are books like Walton's 'Angler,' which delight the people who do not care about the sport. They speak of books which give you a taste in the mouth for the art they deal with, and give you a pure and high satisfactionon reading them. MORAL ATMOSPHERE OF GAR-

DENING. "I cannot help believing, and believing very firmlv, in the moral training in the atmosphere of gardening. 1 judge that p«rtly from the cottagers' gardens, which represent so much thought and study and work given in moments of leisure to produce what I think is almost invariably a singularly brilliant and impressive result. I cannot believe that a cottager when he gives his few moments' leisure to produce something beautiful, not merely for his own enjoyment, but for the pleasure of every passer-by—l cannot believe that such a cottager is anything hilt a good, a worthy, and an'honest man. THE CREAM OF THE POPULA-

TION. "But I feel sure that I am right in thinking highly of the moral aspects of gardening as an occupation. I cannot help thinking, without disparagement to other splendid classes of our rural dwellers, that gardeners, on the whole, physically and mentally, are the cream' of our rural population. 1 do not mean by that any disparagement to foresters or gamekeepers or ploughmen, for all ar e splendid classes in their way, and we can never forget that the most beloved of Scotsmen was ' a ploughman. But I do think that the gardener, by the nature of his occupation. is, or should he, physically and intellectually and. morally, the best of our rural population. He leads, from a physical point of view, a life which keeps him always in the open air, and he is daily and hourly face to face with the elevating mystery of Nature. He has the closest intercourse with our mother earth, without the incessant labour of the plough. THE TASK OF THE GARDENER. "His task is to explore and to watch all her secrets. It, is his duty to ideal in turn with all the marvels of Nature —the bud, the flower, and the fruit. He is first to see the opening leaf and the first green spike that pierces the mould, ana ttien wlirn the# weather fails, and when all is too inclement for other pursuits he is able to devote himself to the preparation for another year, in sure and certain faith that that which he has wit nessed in the current year will recur in orderly but miraculous rotation in the coming* spring.

"No one who appreciates the daily task and toil of the gardener can fail to see that there is no calling that can, or should, raise the nature and the mind of man so completely as his; and, therefore, believing as I do that in the circumstances they are, and they must be, the best of our rural population, if 1 were a ruler —• which, thank heaven, I am not! —I would do all that 1 could to multiply and increase such men, for I should feel that by so doing I was best serving the interest of the rural parts of our country." m