17G 



JOURNAL OF HOBTIOULTUKB AND OOTTAGK GABDENER. 



[ March 7, 1887. 



died ber daughter \veDt up and down trying to get a few spriga 

 oJ late Wallflowers. She had costly stove flowers offered by 

 ber friends ; they would not do for her — she said her poor 

 mother knew nothing about them, did not love them, and that 

 flowers were almost worthless save for the thoughts and feel- 

 ings they embodied. 



" Those Orange Lilies remind me of the prairies of America," 

 said one who had wandered up and down on the face of the 

 earth. " I never see them but I go back to that old time when, 

 travelling in North America out among the wilds, we used to 

 come suddenly upon them growing in the hollows, large 

 patches of them one brilliant glow. Ours are pale in com- 

 parison ; the stronger light, I suppose, brought out a deeper 

 colour." 



That little Onoidium flexuosum, standing out like an " In 

 Memoriam," the gift of one — a brnve, strong, yet ailing, deli- 

 cate man — who thought for, worked for, and gave up his life 

 for, the elder brother less brave, less strong, who lay down in 

 the midnight darkness to sleep with miles of wood, and field, 

 and lonely moor all around — lay down with his day's work un- 

 finished, the hope of his life unfulfilled, and never woke up 

 in this world to finish his work ; and his hope we can but 

 trust he will find in that other country where the hands are 

 stronger, and the pains of the flesh hold not back the willing 

 worker. 



So it is, some flowers are much to us apart from their beauty 

 And their fragrance ; they are breathings-out of the life we have 

 lived, reminders of the scenes through which we have passed, 

 sharers of our mirth and revelry, quiet witnesses of our sad 

 and solemn hours, untired tellers of the old story of our 

 doings ; and fresh and new with each season do they come 

 back to us. 



Again, we are digging away the snow in the old Abbey garden 

 miles from home, to find the Snowdrops we knew were above 

 the ground before the storm came, and we shiver at the east 

 wind blowing keenly thi'ough us, and feel the deadly coldness 

 of the but-half-alivo flowers when found and gathered. Vie 

 can see them with our eyes closed, and know very well all 

 the Snowdrops in the world can never be to us what those poor 

 far-fetched delicate spring flowers were. 



Or we are seeking with untiring patience the dark Primroses 

 from among the pale ones, growing on that Primrose bank at 

 ■Gothorp Hall, that bank on wliich the sun loved to shine; and 

 ■we can hear the murmur of the dear river Aire, that used to 

 make sweet music for us ; and we can feel the hushed stillness 

 from the great Eommell's Moor tracking our steps, making a 

 sort of presence which awed our childhood, causing us to 

 pause, and listen, and wait. Ah me I there was no fear in 

 those days, no jarring note in the hallelujah chorus of our 

 lives, no thunder in the heavy rain clouds darkening all the 

 Tillages around, no danger in the wind that whirled and tossed 

 the leaves and straws high up above our heads, and rolled us 

 over and over on our grassy play-ground. Now we never see 

 those spring flowers in cottage gardens, or growing under the 

 hedges, or in the market in the countrywomen's baskets or 

 on the artist's canvas, but we think of those who were about 

 us then, who never more will hear the murmur of the river or 

 •the deep breathings of the moor. 



Or -we are dragging and poking up with bits of rough sticks 

 gi-eat yellow bulbs of the Turk's Cap Lily growing in a little 

 ,jgarden of an empty house. How we pulled, and toiled, and 

 ■overheated ourselves on that close August evening, and bore 

 *way in our fright only two roots. The house had an evil 

 name — was, indeed, said to be haunted, so that we pulled, and 

 poked, and worked in mortal terror of the ghosts inside, and 

 in dread of some chance passer-by, for it was a roadside 

 garden. 



Or we are twisting and turning long sprays of Bindweed 

 round our hats, and wondering why the big white flowers 

 ghould persist in closing up so long before the day is done, 

 and trying out-of-the-way means to keep them open, at last 

 tossing them away to float down the stream like fairy gondolas. 

 Now, in our wiser years, we never pluck them, but leave them 

 to open out wide and full in adoration to the warm summer 

 sun, the only thing they care for ; when he moves westward or 

 shades his splendour, even for an hour, they fade and die. 



Or in our summer holidays we are again picking pale pink 

 Convolvuluses out of the short stiff grass — ical shore flowers 

 we call them ; but we never gather them without dreaming of 

 a time when we lay resting on a warm hillside with those 

 little flowers all about us ; a sense of peace, and rest, and joy 

 filling our hearts, loving friends with true and tender words 



making richer and fuller the cup of our lives, and the great 

 waves like giant crystals beating up to Bridport Harbour — 

 silent save for the fishermen's cries — the blue sky brooding 

 softly over a sea as blue. 



•' I never can look at Primulas," said a dear cousin, " but I 

 grieve for the fate of one that came to an untimely end — a 

 finely-fringed white Chinese Primrose brought all the way from 

 that far country by a captain friend — a splendid specimen. It 

 was watered and tended so carefully, and flowered as never 

 Primula flowered before for nine long months ; then in my ab- 

 sence it was turned over in the darkness and left to die." 



Then, too, those little Forget-me-nots — how full they are 

 of many memories of wild-flower gatherings — in the Middle- 

 ton woods, in the Adel valley on the banks of the Ouse, on 

 Tork Common, in the Shipley glen, and in the Dorsetshire 

 lanes ; but clearer than aU else stands out the thought of a 

 Sunday evening ramble outside the town of Dorchester, beyond 

 the long avenue of trees that mark its entrance so grandly. 

 There we stood in the grass beneath the cool grey sky, for the 

 day was nearly done, a group of girls gathering Forget-me-nots 

 for each other to be kept safe and hve till we should meet 

 again, gathering them with low, soft, loving words mingled 

 with kisses and gushes of laughter that would not be kept 

 back. I can see again the summer day fading into the night, 

 our dresses falling on the grass, blending with its greenness, 

 and making but one colour ; and I can hear the fall of our feet 

 homewards, and the sighs with which we put away our 

 treasures — prestige of the sorrow of a long, long parting. And 

 when the living blue Forget-me-not comes to me (I never seek 

 it now, or gi'ow it, or care to go where it is), then I look at 

 my grey dead ones, and feel a deep aching meaning in those 

 ■words, 



" Oh, for the touch of a hand .... and the sound of a voice." 



Or we are dropping quiet, painless, nay, thankful tears, upon 

 some fair white flowers, sister flowers to some we left upon a 

 new grave — a grave dearer and sadder than we think any other 

 can ever be to us ; left in all their fresh beauty and sweet 

 fragrance upon the dead flowers of other years, upon the grassy 

 mound in that old churchyard, the rooks cawing in the dark 

 Fir trees, the noise and smoke of the great town far away, and 

 the warm soft August rain dropping down tears quieter even 

 than our own upon our fair white LiUes. Dear and sacred 

 are those Lilies unto us. 



Yes, so it is. A flower may be but a frail flower, and yet it 

 may be invested with a deeper meaning, made richer by the 

 doings and feelings of a Ufe. To many the pale Snowdrops are 

 but the herald of spring, bom out of the cold hard winter soil 

 — promise of gayer flowers to follow. To others they are the 

 world's resurrection flowers— not bom, but risen from the dead 

 — a thing of the past linked to the far future. And some flowers 

 which we may regard with sorrowful eyes may be to others fall 

 of sunny memories, of pleasant associations : so that after all 

 they are what we have made them, speaking to us in the 

 language our own lives have taught them, but yet ever dear to 

 us — dear in the long summer days of peace and joy — dearer 

 still in the cold winter days of sorrow and loss, unless, indeed, 

 we have suffered the noise of the great world to deafen us to 

 their low sweet voices. — MAun. 



VERBENA CULTURE. 



I SHOULD like to recommend, side by side with the remarks 

 made on the Verbena by Mr. Wills, a plan which I adopt for 

 growing them after they are struck, and which, if not original, 

 is not common. No doubt some one will start up and say, " I 

 have practised it for many years ! " and if any of your readers do 

 so, I have no doubt the plan has never been abandoned by them. 

 It is as follows : — 



After the cuttings are struck, say at the end of March, a 

 frame about 18 inches high at the back and a foot high in 

 front is chosen ; one that you can shut up perfectly close is the 

 best. Inside the frame place 9 inches of geod light soil, and 

 in this plant the Verbenas from the cutting-pots, watering them 

 well with tepid water to settle the soil. When the sun shines, 

 every morning give about half an inch of air, no more, until 

 ten o'clock, when the plants should be watered overhead, and 

 shut up closely for the day. The thermometer will possibly rise 

 above 100° ; but you will see, if you try the system, what a 

 black strong growth the plants will make in consequence. 

 When you see a. warm genial shower coming in April or May pull 

 off your hghts, and exfoae the plants to it, shutting them up 



