961. Climates and soils comparatively unfavourable for fruits and plants are naturally conducive to skill in gardening. A very variable and unsettled climate, Neill observes (Gen. Report of Scotland, ch. ix.), tends to call into action all the powers of the mind, and to produce habits of increasing attention ; and, where a gardener is able to raise tolerable crops, both of the more tender fruits and vegetables, in climates and situations adverse to the production of either, he has doubtless more real merit in accomplishing his object, even though the articles should be somewhat inferior in quality, than he who, in a propitious soil and climate, raises them to the utmost perfection. Yet the merits of such a gardener are often overlooked; and the master, through ignorance or indifference, or a niggardly penuriousness of approbation, receives that as an effort of mechanical routine, which is due to a rare union of science, skill, and indefatigable attention.
