Speeches: Literary and Social

GARDENERS AND GARDENING. LONDON, JUNE 14, 1852

[The Ninth Anniversary Dinner of the Gardeners' Benevolent
Institution was held on the above date at the London Tavern. The
company numbered more than 150. The dessert was worthy of the
occasion, and an admirable effect was produced by a profuse display
of natural flowers upon the tables and in the decoration of the
room. The chair was taken by Mr. Charles Dickens, who, in
proposing the toast of the evening, spoke as follows:-]

For three times three years the Gardeners' Benevolent Institution
has been stimulated and encouraged by meetings such as this, and by
three times three cheers we will urge it onward in its prosperous
career. [The cheers were warmly given.]

Occupying the post I now do, I feel something like a counsel for
the plaintiff with nobody on the other side; but even if I had been
placed in that position ninety times nine, it would still be my
duty to state a few facts from the very short brief with which I
have been provided.

This Institution was founded in the year 1838. During the first
five years of its existence, it was not particularly robust, and
seemed to have been placed in rather a shaded position, receiving
somewhat more than its needful allowance of cold water. In 1843 it
was removed into a more favourable position, and grafted on a
nobler stock, and it has now borne fruit, and become such a
vigorous tree that at present thirty-five old people daily sit
within the shelter of its branches, and all the pensioners upon the
list have been veritable gardeners, or the wives of gardeners. It
is managed by gardeners, and it has upon its books the excellent
rule that any gardener who has subscribed to it for fifteen years,
and conformed to the rules, may, if he will, be placed upon the
pensioners' list without election, without canvass, without
solicitation, and as his independent right. I lay very great
stress upon that honourable characteristic of the charity, because
the main principle of any such institution should be to help those
who help themselves. That the Society's pensioners do not become
such so long as they are able to support themselves, is evinced by
the significant fact that the average age of those now upon the
list is seventy-seven; that they are not wasteful is proved by the
fact that the whole sum expended on their relief is but 500 pounds
a-year; that the Institution does not restrict itself to any narrow
confines, is shown by the circumstance, that the pensioners come
from all parts of England, whilst all the expenses are paid from
the annual income and interest on stock, and therefore are not
disproportionate to its means.

Such is the Institution which appeals to you through me, as a most
unworthy advocate, for sympathy and support, an Institution which
has for its President a nobleman {8} whose whole possessions are
remarkable for taste and beauty, and whose gardener's laurels are
famous throughout the world. In the list of its vice-presidents
there are the names of many noblemen and gentlemen of great
influence and station, and I have been struck in glancing through
the list of its supporters, with the sums written against the names
of the numerous nurserymen and seedsmen therein comprised. I hope
the day will come when every gardener in England will be a member
of the charity.

The gardener particularly needs such a provision as this
Institution affords. His gains are not great; he knows gold and
silver more as being of the colour of fruits and flowers than by
its presence in his pockets; he is subjected to that kind of labour
which renders him peculiarly liable to infirmity; and when old age
comes upon him, the gardener is of all men perhaps best able to
appreciate the merits of such an institution.

To all indeed, present and absent, who are descended from the first


"gardener Adam and his wife,"


the benefits of such a society are obvious. In the culture of
flowers there cannot, by their very nature, be anything, solitary
or exclusive. The wind that blows over the cottager's porch,
sweeps also over the grounds of the nobleman; and as the rain
descends on the just and on the unjust, so it communicates to all
gardeners, both rich and poor, an interchange of pleasure and
enjoyment; and the gardener of the rich man, in developing and
enhancing a fruitful flavour or a delightful scent, is, in some
sort, the gardener of everybody else.

The love of gardening is associated with all conditions of men, and
all periods of time. The scholar and the statesman, men of peace
and men of war, have agreed in all ages to delight in gardens. The
most ancient people of the earth had gardens where there is now
nothing but solitary heaps of earth. The poor man in crowded
cities gardens still in jugs and basins and bottles: in factories
and workshops people garden; and even the prisoner is found
gardening in his lonely cell, after years and years of solitary
confinement. Surely, then, the gardener who produces shapes and
objects so lovely and so comforting, should have some hold upon the
world's remembrance when he himself becomes in need of comfort.

I will call upon you to drink "Prosperity to the Gardeners'
Benevolent Institution," and I beg to couple with that toast the
name of its noble President, the Duke of Devonshire, whose worth is
written in all his deeds, and who has communicated to his title and
his riches a lustre which no title and no riches could confer.

[Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens said:-]

My office has compelled me to burst into bloom so often that I
could wish there were a closer parallel between myself and the
American aloe. It is particularly agreeable and appropriate to
know that the parents of this Institution are to be found in the
seed and nursery trade; and the seed having yielded such good
fruit, and the nursery having produced such a healthy child, I have
the greatest pleasure in proposing the health of the parents of the
Institution.

[In proposing the health of the Treasurers, Mr. Dickens said:-]

My observation of the signboards of this country has taught me that
its conventional gardeners are always jolly, and always three in
number. Whether that conventionality has reference to the Three
Graces, or to those very significant letters, L., S., D., I do not
know. Those mystic letters are, however, most important, and no
society can have officers of more importance than its Treasurers,
nor can it possibly give them too much to do.