50 THE GARDENER. [Feb. 



the eye and good for food; of Getlisemane, and of tliat garden where 

 our crucified Lord was laid. What is our love of flowers, our calm 

 happiness in our gardens, but a dim recollection of our first home in 

 Paradise, and a yearning for the Land of Promise ! Here in the 

 wilderness we love to reclaim these green spots from the Brier and 

 Thorn; to fence and to cleanse; to plant and sow; to sit at eventide, 

 when work is done, every man under his Vine and under his Fig-tree, 

 with thankfulness and hope. 



With hope, because these our gardens — scenes though they be of 

 brightest beauty to our eyes, and sources of our purest joys — do not 

 satisfy, are not meant to satisfy, our heart's desire. Perishable as we 

 ourselves, for the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, they are, more- 

 over, like all our handiwork, deformed by fault and flaw. Did you 

 ever meet a gardener, who, however fair his ground, was absolutely 

 content and pleased] Did you never hear " si angulus ille!" from 

 the lord of many fields 1 Is there not always a tree to be felled or a 

 bed to be turfed? Does not somebody's chimney, or somebody's 

 ploughed field, persist in obtruding its ugliness? Is there not ever 

 some grand mistake to be remedied next summer ? Alas ! the florist 

 never is, but always to be, blessed with a perfect garden ; and to him, 

 as to all mankind, perfect happiness is that " gay to-morrow of the 

 mind, which never comes." 



These imperfections and mistakes, of course, arise in our gardens 

 mainly from our own ignorance or indolence ; and as sterility, feeble- 

 ness, and premature decay are caused not by tree, plant, weather, soil, 

 but by wrong treatment, position, neglect; so all unsightly combinations, 

 poverty or excess of objects brought together, rigidity, monotony, un- 

 gracefulness, originate not from the materials at our disposal, but from 

 the manner in which we dispose them. And in this matter of a7Tanr/e- 

 ment we are at the present day conspicuously weak. Never was the 

 gardener so rich in resources. Our collectors, hazarding their lives, 

 and losing them in their work of love, have gained us treasures from 

 every clime. Sadly, like some cemetery tree, does the beautiful 

 Douglas Pine remind us of him whose name it bears, who sent it to 

 adorn our homes, and who, searching for fresh prizes, perished miserably, 

 falling into a pit dug by the Sandwich Islanders for the capture of 

 wild bulls, and gored to death by one of them. The lovely Lycaste 

 speaks to us sorrowfully of George Ure Skinner ; and the most striking 

 of the Marantas (Veitchii), the velvety Begonia Pearcei, with its golden 

 flowers, his exquisite Gymnostachium, and splendid Sanchezia, of 

 Richard Pearce, — both of whom died in their harness. These and 

 others have amplified our shining stores, while our florists at home, by 

 selection, culture, cross-breeding, and hybridising, have made admirable 



