THE FLORAL WORLD AND aARDEN GUIDE. 



201 



cough grows woi'se, and she thinks she 

 cannot Uve through another ; and with all 

 her weight of painful renienibrauces, and 

 with all her bodily alllictions, age has not 

 so chilled her feelings but that she loves 

 her window pets as much as ever. Her 

 geraniums are no one knows how many 

 years old, their stems knotty and dark, 

 and you would think, if you were to see 

 them in January, that all life had departed 

 out of them. But Grranny knows to a day 

 when they will begin to break again, and 

 she goes out into the road on the first 

 sunny spring-day, and gathers a little fresh 

 goil in a fire-shovel, and dresses up their 

 roots, and brings them into the light 

 again, and gives them but little water at 

 first, and this year they will grow as 

 bravely as ever, filling the whole of lier 

 window with a leafy screen, and blooming 

 to a certainty on Midsummer-day. Her 

 heliotrope is just as old, and is grown 

 like a shrub, and she says it always comes 

 into bloom about Lammas-day, and she 

 half believes that the boys make their 

 oystei'-shell grottoes on that day, in cele- 

 bration of the opening of her sweet-scented 

 flowers. God has not left her utterly de- 

 solate ; she can still read her large-print 

 Bible, and as long as she can keep on her 

 feet, those precious flowers will sweeten 

 her little room with their fiagi ance, anl 

 shed a soft light on her pathway to the 

 grave. Look at her prying into the buds 

 to see if any thing has come to hurt her 

 darlings. Her white cap, and twinkling 

 eye, and gray hair, make her beautiful as 

 the sunlight glances on her, and one might 

 believe her to be an angel tarrying for but 

 an hour on this side of heaven, beguiled 

 by the love of something so suggestive of 

 her proper home. And she is one. You 

 can almost see the glory of a better world 

 shining on her brow as it did on the brow 

 of Stephen. Her stay beside these ilowers 

 will not be Lug. 



But who can tell the joy of a garden, 

 who but those who know, through sweet 

 experience, can realize, either by remem- 

 brance or anticipation, the hearty fullness 

 of life in which a gardener's happiness con- 

 sists ! Tiike the year round, with all its 

 lights and shadows, and what pursuit can 

 offer so many joyous hopes, so many glad 

 realizations, so many exquisite pleasures ! 

 Look at the dark, crumbly, fertile mould, 

 how it rolls over from the spade, smelling 

 rich and earthy, and showing a promise of 

 plenty as it falls into friable powder in the 

 ridges ! Look at the well-dressed border, 

 ■when hoed over for the last time, ready for 

 the seed that is to be committed to it ; it 



is nothing to a passer-by, but its neat, 

 swelling outline gives a pleasure to the 

 gardener's eye that is not of the moment, 

 but one of future promise. Then with 

 wliat faith is the seed committed to the 

 earth ; a few grains as fine as dust thrown 

 by the skilful hand, and left to the care of 

 the elements, in the full assurance that 

 Nature will do her best to reward the 

 husbandman ! Then there is the daily 

 observation of the growth of things, whe- 

 ther they be the commonest kitchen crops, 

 or the choicest flowering exotics, how we 

 rejoice to see a bud break here, or a shoot 

 start there, or on a sudden, and as it were 

 ill a single night, a potted plant sends up 

 from every joint its bold trusses that are 

 to cover it with glory, and prove before 

 the world that patience and skill, spent on 

 worthy objects, are sure to bring their 

 good rewards. And the pleasure of eating 

 choice fruits and vegetables of our own 

 growth ! How sweet and crisp the lettuces 

 just cut for the table, how cool and deli- 

 cious the cucumbers snipped otf in the 

 very nick of time before a single seed has 

 been formed in them, how tasty the winter 

 kale or the Brussels' sprouts, that make 

 one leap from the garden to the pot ; and 

 the new potatoes, who that has grown 

 them will ever forget how they taste au 

 hour a!ter they have been tumbled out of 

 thi rows ! Then the peas ; you have only 

 to tell a friend yoti will dine on such a day 

 on peas " out of your own garden," and 

 he'll go any number of miles to taste your 

 marrowy, bright green beauties, that have 

 never been fermented in bushel baskets, or 

 shaken out of flavour by the jolting of the 

 market-Ciirt. Talk of high art and classic 

 gardening, the sight of a row of well- 

 grown kale, or a broad patch of kidney 

 beans just coming into flower, or well- 

 trained fruits on a south wall, swelling 

 with luscious juices, and almost crying 

 "Eat me, eat me," is one that cheers the 

 heart of man, and appeals as strongly to 

 the sympathies of a noble duke as to a 

 ploughman iu want of a dinner. The 

 matrons say, "TLie way to a boy's heart is 

 through his belly ;" but the adage applies 

 to human kind of any age. We do like to 

 see something eatable in a garden ; and the 

 man who makes a hobby of raising the 

 best kinds of edibles, whether of the class 

 of necessities or luxuries, adds to the pro- 

 ductive power of his native laud, increases 

 the national resources, and in his day and 

 generation does some good for the world. 

 To enjoy a garden, a man must be a 

 student of Nature, a good weather prophet, 

 ! something of a botanist, very quick-sighted 



