Jauaary 4, 1377. ) 



JOURNAIi OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



NEW 

 BOTAr 

 QARI 



A NEW YEARS WELCOME. 



" Welcome ever smileB, 

 Thoagh Farewell goes out fighiog ; 

 For time is like a faebionable host, 

 That slightly shakes his parting guests by the hand, 

 But with his arms out-stretched, as he would fly, 

 Grasps in the comer." 



O Baitli Shakppeare. We learn, therefore, that 

 fashionable hosts were about the same three 

 hundred years ago as now. The guest has 

 told his tale and acted his part, contributed 

 to the amusement of others, and he may go; 

 or he has failed, and outstayed his welcome. 

 In any case he may go; his time is over, 

 and his presence not needed. The old year 

 is the old guest to us ; we have shaken hands 

 with him, we gai-deners, not very cordially, 

 for he has not been a very good friend— too cold for too 

 long a time at the beginnins : half his time over nearly 

 before he was warm and genial. May gone before spring 

 came. Then he warmed indeed, and such heat ! so scorch- 

 ing, so killing to flowers, that his July and August were 

 terrible. With floods and storms he ended. He is gone, 

 may the next year be better. We stretch out our hands 

 to 1877 and bid him welcome. 



Next to the farmer, how much the gardener depends 

 upon the weather ! The farmer cannot indeed spread a 

 tent over his hayfiekl, but the gardener can protect his 

 flowers ; yet the gardener has not only to f:ght against bad 

 soil, but bad seasons as well. He can, in fact, overcome 

 the former, but who can overcome the troubles the latter 

 bring ? Yet who would give up gardening because of its 

 difficulties ? Scotchmen are said to be superior gardeners, 

 because they come from a country where they have more 

 difficulties to contend against than their brethren in 

 England. Besides, Englishmen like to fight against odds. 

 "Hard fighting, gentlemen, to-day," said an English 

 general, when (he foe fought hard and the cause seemed 

 doubtful; but he added, with a true English disregard 

 for odds, "let them see who can fight the longest." 



'lis wonderful how fond of overcoming difficulties we 

 are. Last Crystal Palace Pigeon Show 1 heard one gen- 

 tleman drawing the attention of another to a certain class 

 of birds, saying, "Those are good, are they not?" Mark 

 the answer given : " Ye.i. pretty enough ; but too easy to 

 breed." The English spirit spoke out then. So I would 

 say, Gardeners, in welcoming in the present year, not 

 knowing what you may have to face, be determined to 

 succeed. Read and work, study in the dark long winter 

 evenings, and by day watch and work ; don't be content, 

 young men, with the knowledge you have acquired. 

 Gardening is not like Chinese painting; there is always 

 something new to learn, and some progress is to be made, 

 some region unexplored, and profitable. Mot like the 

 Arctic regions desolate and dreary, but pleasant and 

 cheery. There is something very fascinating and attach- 

 ing in gardening. Collectors notoriously take up and 

 drop their hobbies : now coins, then stamps, then china, 

 bat these are human arts, and often and very soon tire, 

 No. 823.-V0L. XXXIL, New Series. 



because soon exhausted ; but who that once loved a gar- 

 den ever tired of it? Who delights most in the gardens 

 in the London parks? People bred in the country, and 

 who had gardens, but who being in London cannot have 

 any : hence they adopt the gardens the Statb supplies 

 as their own, and enjoy them, not quite as if their oivn, 

 but still how much they enjoy them. 



One old Roman story — that of Cincinnatus refusing to 

 leave his farm for great civic honours — is well known ; 

 another is not so well known. It is this: The Emperor 

 Dioclesian after he had resigned the purple retired to 

 Dalmatia, and his successor tried to induce him to return 

 to the cares of state, but without avail. His answer was, 

 " If only you could see the Cabbages which I have planted 

 with my own hands you would not ask me to return." 

 True, Cabbages do not indicate what we should call high- 

 class gardening; but more, I dare say, remained unmen- 

 tioned. One garden amateur takes to vegetables, another 

 to some fruit — Grapes, or Pears, or Apples ; another to 

 some flower or arrangement of colours ; while the artisan 

 of the north bestows loving pains on Gooseberries, or (oh ! 

 " D.," of Deal, though of Deal no longer, yet thine is not 

 unfair dcaliurf) to Auriculas. There is room abundant 

 for all tastes, all choices at the great banquet of nature. 

 A garden is the greatest recreation of the mind ; aud says 

 one, "My ideal of as perfect a life as is attainable in this 

 world would be a hfe of a modest and serene man of 

 letters, loving and loved ; within surrounded by his books, 

 without encompassed by his Roses." Truly a charming 

 ideal. And perhaps because his study looked into a con- 

 servatory at his last residence was one reason why Ma- 

 caulay, after describing his home, wrote, " I do enjoy this 

 invalid life extremely." And in truth I cannot imagine 

 any man moi-e miserable than one obliged to live in the 

 country, yet with no love of the country. There is a 

 sweet aud gracious presence of a noble lady of the highest 

 rank upon which I sometimes look, and always with, 

 respect, but with greater respect and reverence now that 

 I know that she goes up to the London season as late as 

 possible, and returns to her noble country home as soon as 

 possible, in order to enjoy her flowers and country duties 

 and pleasures. It is this living in the country among 

 tenants large and small — the great-acred farmer with 

 humble cottager — that binds rich and poor together in a 

 loving bond in this England of ours. Mr. Gladstone 

 once boasted in an eloquent speech of his that "in foreign 

 countries a piece of ground laid out with a view to pro- 

 ducing a picturesque effect was always called an English 

 garden ;" aud no compliment to English tastes or to 

 English gardeners could be greater. 



I have sometimes wondered that better gardens arc 

 not, as a rule, to bo found attached to farmhouses. Good 

 orchards often, but good gardens seldom. It seems that 

 this is also the case in America, for I read in a New York 

 periodical — " How seldom do you see a good garden 

 attached to a farm, jet no one has the facilities in this 

 respect commanded by the farmer. With abundance of 

 land, fresh stable manure with which to make a hotbed 

 of any extent, choice of soil and exposure, steam imple- 

 No. U75.— Vol. LVlI., Old Sebles. 



