THE RESULTS OF READING.

Otago Witness, Issue 1585, 8 April 1882, Page 7

THE RESULTS OF READING.

• A Nobleman's Gardener' writes as follows in a recent number of the Mark Lane Express:—ln the remarks on • The Advantages of Taking an Agricultural Paper,' which appeared in your advertisement sheet of Mondaylast, you state that it is not unusual for professional gardeners to subscribe to two or three papers that are devoted to their calling. If this were not true the horticultural press could not be supported to the extent that it is. It is a simple truth that all the leading gardeners read all that is published pertaining to their calling ; and more than this, it is the information thus gained, and turned to^ account, that has enabled them to excel as cultivators. Those who do not read lag behind, forming the tail end of the profession, and they have not, nor cannot have, a full, proper, and intimate knowledge of their business. And what is the result of all this reading; ? It is this. In no nation under the sun is such generally high culture found as in British gardens. Nowhere are such fruits, vegetables, and flowers, that are capable of being cultivated in our climate, grown so well as in this country. It is not because men work harder and longer here than in other countries. They neither work so hard nor so long as is the rule on some parts of the Continent. It is not that the soil is naturally more fertile here, nor the sun brighter. There must be some other influence. In no nation are gardening publications to be found equal to those in this country, and it is by each man appropriating what is provided, by becoming acquainted with all experiments that are conducted and the most successful methods of culture, that the present standard has been reached, and the services of .competent British gardeners are coveted in all parts of the world. That British farmers are not equally diligent readers is a marvel. In America it is different. The cultivators of the soil there cannot afford to dispense with current agricultural literature, or they could not maintain their position. It will and must be the same in England : let us hope the value of a press, conducted by practical as well as scientific men, will be found out in time. For myself, I can truly say that a shilling a week spent in gardening papers has been the best of all my little investments. I have often obtained in one week information that has been worth pounds to me, and gained as much knowledge in a month as I could not have acquired in ten years if left to my own resources and shut up in my own narrow mind. It must be the same with agricultures : indeed, it cannot be otherwise. If each would make the best minds his own'property, the best methods and practices his own possession, a vast improvement would soon be apparent ; failing this, that can be purchased for a few pence weekly, British agriculture must not lag