178 THE GARDENER. [April 



glass and at tlie flower-garden done blooming, and withered -like, and her 

 ladyship commanded the change with more decision than ever. Now these 

 gardens had for a quarter of a century been in charge of two men (the late Mr 

 John Young, and Mr James M'Intosh, my predecessor at Drumlaurig) very 

 painstaking cultivators, and there was an excellent assortment of these plants 

 at Archerfield ; still we could have carried in our hand the whole bloom they 

 produced in August and September. As is well known, the soil at Archerfield 

 is light and dry, the climate considered to be the driest in Great Britain, and 

 no supply of water but what had to be pumped by manu il labour and collected 

 from the roofs of the houses — conditions most unfavourable to a late bloom of 

 herbaceous plants — but as everybody who visits the place knows, it is most 

 singularly favourable to the long-continued and brilliant bloom of the half-hardy 

 plants used there. Had our depreciatory critic been in our position, with all his 

 ardent love of hardy plants, what would he have done ? Disobeyed his em- 

 ployer, or have made the most of available resources and met her wishes ? Our 

 opinion is, that one of the best tests, and the first duty of a successful gardener, 

 is to produce what his employer wants, and let his own hobbies sink. 



We of course carried out our employer's wish, removing the shrubs and hardy 

 herbaceous plants with which the beds and borders were mostly filled ; and in 

 the hope of getting some of the best late-blooming sorts to bloom later, we 

 planted some of them in a damper border partially shaded ; but finding that 

 they were over before September, we did not continue them. This, we should 

 suppose, is explanation and reason enough for our practice at Archerfield, not- 

 withstanding the esteem in which we held and still hold many herbaceous 

 plants, and in spite of what our critic tries to make out. 



We entertained the Editor of the ' Garden ' at Archerfield some time after 

 the change of gardening. But he apparently forgets all he saw or heard of 

 there. He has forgotten how he expatiated to us on the numbers of tall- 

 growing things used to relieve the general features. He forgets all about 

 the majestic rows of Tritomas, the Palms, comparatively hardy Dracaenas, 

 Hameas, Yuccas (variegated and green), Gladiolus, &c. Since an occurrence 

 of last November, he makes it convenient to forget all these matters. 



The third quotation made from our writings shows the desperate straits to 

 which our contemporary is reduced in his attempt at fastening a case on us. 

 This is what we did write : — 



" Indeed it has been hinted that some of the sections of plants are scarcely sus- 

 ceptible of much further improvement ; and as to arrangement, it might almost 

 he said that the plants at our service have been used in every conceivable 

 arrangement and relationship to each other, and that there cannot be much to 

 achieve within the limits of good taste in this direction." See how this 

 quotation is garbled ! Now this is not given as our positive opinion, and we 

 continue to write : " If this be near the truth, and the rate of progress is to be 

 maintained, and the interest of flower-gardening freshened, we must neces- 

 sarily look to a new order of plants, and to the rcintroduction of many that 

 have been much neglected, and, in fact, never cultivated as they ought, " and 

 so on — page 12 of ' Handy Book ; ' and at page 13 the reader will find us con- 

 tinuing the subject : "I consider it very desirable to work into a still greater 

 variety of a hardier class of plants," &c. ; and then — "Hardy plants such 

 as I have referred to, or rather the multiplication and use of them, are one 

 of the greatest desiderata of the modern flower-garden." We wrote this years 

 before the * Garden ' was in existence. We have no greater desire, in order to 



