IRIS 207 
gardens of Horikiri—a little, shallow vale of an acre or 
two, a river-spate, in its time, of blue and purple splen- 
dour, where the Irises are so crowded that hardly a leaf 
can be seen, rari nantes in gurgite vasto of that swirling 
kaleidoscopic tide. And dotted here and there are little 
summer-houses of wood and thatch, open on all sides, 
where one drinks pale tea brought by Elder Sister, with 
a painted fan and a few Iris blooms wrapped up in paper 
—and then writes poetry to the ecstatising glory of the 
flowers all around. 
There are many schools, schisms, heresies, heterodoxies 
as to the treatment, in England, of the Japanese Iris, 
and, by dint of all these, the plant has acquired a doubt- 
ful reputation that I do not think it deserves. There is, 
to start with, one great predominant pon’r in the culture 
of Iris Kaempfert. Never plant it in shady places, in 
hollows of the wood, and so forth. If you do this it will 
possibly grow well and permanently, but it will never 
flower, or very rarely. It is dependent for its bloom and 
general welfare on complete exposure to the sun (at 
least this is my firm and pious, though humble, convic- 
tion). After this, all is uncertainty. I have even heard 
of Iris Kaempferit rioting in beauty on a high, hot, and 
sandy slope (history did not say how long it continued 
to do so, urges my scepticism). I have heard of it, I say, 
luxuriating or failing, in the most improbable places, and 
altogether the question seems as hopeless of final canonical 
settlement as that of the right culture for Lilium candi- 
dum. Perhaps, like a theological dogma, or the cat’s 
inquiry about the historical precedence of owl and egg, 
there is no real end or answer, no definite, unalterable 
right or wrong. 
There is one consideration, before I try to deal with 
the matter by the light of my own experience, that, I am 
sure, has helped to shed doubt and uncertainty over the 
