THE TECHNICS OF GARDENING. 173 



g-eneration speak in George M liner's " Country 

 Pleasures " : 



" By this time I have got round to the old English flower-bed, 

 where only perennials with' an ancient ancestry are allowed to grow. 

 Here there is always delight ; and I should be sorry to exchange its 

 sweet flowers for any number of cartloads of scentless bedding-plants, 

 mechanically arranged and ribbon-bordered. This bed is from fifty 

 to sixty yards long, and three or four yards in width. A thorn hedge 

 divides it from the orchard. In spring the apple-bloom hangs 

 over, and now we see in the background the apples themselves. 

 The plants still in flower are the dark blue monkshood, which 

 is 7ft. high ; the spiked veronica ; the meadow-sweet or queen-o'- 

 the-meadow ; the lady's mantle, and the evening primrose. This last 

 may be regarded as the characteristic plant of the season. The 

 flowers open about seven o'clock, and as the twilight deepens, they 

 gleam like pale lamps, and harmonise wonderfully with the colour of 

 the sky. On this bed I read the history of the year. Here were the 

 first snowdrops ; here came the crocuses, the daftbdils, the blue 

 gentians, the columbines, the great globed peonies ; and last, the lilies 

 and the roses." 



And now to apply what has been said. 



Since gardening entails so much study and ex- 

 perience — since it is a craft in which one is so apt to 

 err, in small matters as in large — since it e.xists to re- 

 present passages of Nature that have touched man's 

 imagination from time immemorial — since its busi- 

 ness is to paint living pictures of living things whose 

 habits, aspects, qualities, and character have ever 

 encraeed man's interest — since the modern gardener 

 has not only not found new sources of inspiration 

 unknown of old, but has even lost sensibility to some 

 that were active then — it were surely wise to take 

 the hand of old garden-masters who did large things 

 in a larger past — to whom fine gardening came as 

 second nature — whose success has given English 



