2197. The lodge for under-gardeners should never consist of less than three apartments or divisions: first, an outer lobby, with a pump and exit for water, in which the workmen may wash their hands on entering to their meals, and the party who acts as cook or servant, which is generally taken by turns, may wash, scour, &c.; secondly, the cooking and living room, in which should be an economical kitchen-range, with an oven and boiler included, and proper closets, cupboards, tables, &c., to expedite and simplify cooking; and, thirdly, the bedroom over, where the bedsteads should be of iron, narrow, and without curtains, and for not more than one person. To each bed there should be a small clothes-press, in which should be kept the linen, &c., belonging to each bed, and for which the occupier ought to be rendered responsible. A cellar for fuel and edible roots should be formed below. It is a common practice to place the lodges for working gardeners behind the hothouses, or some high wall, in what is called a back shed. There, in one ill-ventilated apartment, with an earthen or brick floor, the whole routine of cooking, cleaning, eating, and sleeping is performed, and young men are rendered familiar with filth and vermin, and lay the foundation of future diseases, by breathing unwholesome air, and checking the animal functions by cold and damp. How masters can expect any good service from men treated worse than horses, it is difficult to imagine; but the case is tenfold worse, when head-gardeners and their families are compelled to lodge in these shed-houses. Independently of filth and incommodiousness, the mother never fails to contract, early in life, rheumatism or ague; and it is only the extreme healthfulness of the employment of gardening, and the consequent vigour of the operatives, that can ward off till a later day similar diseases from the fathers and the journeymen. (See Encyc. of Cott. Arch., ﾺ 1336, ﾺ 1337.)
