The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1868-10-10

GARDENING FOR PROFIT. A Guide 10 the
Successful Cultivation Of the Market and
Family Garden. BY PETER HENDERSON.
New York: ORANGE, JUDD & Co., 245
Broadway. Richmond WEST & JOHN
SToN.
Mr.. Henderson is an educated Scotch
man, and the features Of his intelligence
indicate that he is self-taught. He was
trained from boyhood to middle age-and
he is yet on the sunny side Of fifty-trom
the rudiments to the chair Of authority (er
cathedral q Market Gardener. He claims to
be nothing more, and he certainly is no
thing less, in this, thana on Oracle. He began
life as poor boy, and by industry and
aptitude has made q large fortune; and
unlike his prototype, Grant Thorburn, he
knows how to keepit. But he has neither
shoddied, nor specialized, nor traded; and
not 81 dollar Of his riches comes from q less
honorable source than the culture Of the
soil. And now, with an unselfshness that
does him honor, he gives us this book and
the book is nothing less than the key to
wealth-the same key he has used for
twenty years-polished by wear, and work
ing easily by long usage. 1t was not an
intuitive invention he made many expert
ments and many mistakes before he got the
exact fit, but every mistake was stepping
stone to some discovery, some new trick of
the lock; and he scatters this wealth, or
the means of obtaining it, with the prodi-
gality of Peabody, and says: I have
made enough, the store is inexhaustible;
let everybody 60 in and do the same, and
take my key with him." And any one
who owns land, or can acquire it, sufficiently
south Of the great vegetable marts of the
continent to be among the earliest in the
market, and sufficiently near the great
water communications with them to trans
port produce cheaply, safely, and quickly,
has in this key the open sesame to COM
petence, and, if he has any Rendersonian
industry and aptitude, to fortune.
In what vocation other than the culture
of letters or the soil do we find millionaires
unselfsh enough to tell US the means by
which they grew rich-to reveal the mystic
ries of their craft? TIE man of physic, to
envelop his art in mystery, dominates his
commodities in some language that may
once have passed for Latin. The lawyer
hybridizes dog-Latin with Norman French
10 make his legal technology unintelligible
except to those Of his guild. The schools
of divinity have piled up such o jargon of
isms, and creeds, and dogmas, not under
standed of the people, upon the totality OF
Christianity, as summed up by its glo-
rious founder into one practical maxim
that the Christianity Of Christ is smother
ed out. The Yankee inventor of cry-baby
will not tell you how to pinch the doll til
he has patented the discovery and grid
irons, pencil-shavers, and apple-parers, art
profound mysteries till the inventor hal
secured letters-patent. But the farmer wh'
raises an extraordinary crop makes no sc
y cret of the means of his success; and TIT
man of letters disseminates his acquisition
of knowledge broadcast for the genera
good without reserve. Both these human,
izing influences are united in Henderson
ne is both man of letters and tiller O
Il the soil-and with disinterestedness a!
rare as it is praiseworthy he puts US il
possession if every secret Of his art. HI
has not an ambiguous phrase or mystifca
ton in his whole book he tells us all hi
knows, and what he does not know Of mar.
ket gardening certainly no one else does
He writes on plain subject in o plair
way. He goes neither on stills nor into
highfalutin, nor does he mix up any mat
ter that is foreign to his subject. The book
is pure and simple gardening for profit, and
all it treats Of is the Where? the When
the How and the What to plant? and how
to market it to the best advantage when i
is matured; and it is throughout mode
of conciseness and perspicuity. We have
had books enough on gardening before
from Jethro Tull down to Bridgman. Thes,
once were authorities in horticulture: bu
there never has been book on narke
gardening and the gardener for the family
no more than the gardener for profit, ca,
afford to be without Henderson, for ever
the professional gardener when he read
him will wonder that he had yet so muci
to learn.
Gardening is progressive art. Our an.
cestors were utter strangers to the wild.
range Of wholesome and delicious esculents
shat are now so familiar to us as to have
become necessaries in our daily food. Il
queen Elizabeth had on her table Dutch
apoase, IN addition to the onion and
tsaf. nsid bean and pea, which were then
Inc staple Of vegetable diet, it was about
all the variety that could be obta;ned 49, -
her time. Raleigh introduced TO hs, ~ - =
potato, with maize and tobacco; and in no.
turn for these benefits her nephew and
successor cut off his head. TIE tomato