CHAPTER XIII. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



" Hence throiia^h the garden I was drawn, 

 A realm of pleasance, many a mound, 

 And many a shadow-chequered lawn, 

 Full of the city's stilly sound ; 

 And deep myrrh thickets blowing round 

 The stately cedar, tamarisks, 

 Thick rosaries of scented thorn. 

 Tall orient shrubs and obelisks, 

 Graven with emblems of the time." 



Lord Tennyson. 



'T^HE progress of gardening during the last hinidred years 

 has been so great and so rapid, that it would be a 

 well-nigh endless task to take even a very cursory review of 

 it in all its branches. The immense advance in Botany and 

 classification, the improved methods of cultivation, the vast 

 hot-houses and stoves, and the countless treasures from tropical 

 climes with which to stock them, the numberless plants collected 

 from all parts of the world to beautify the flower-garden, and 

 the endless florists' varieties improved and added to year by 

 year, all these have combined to make the garden of the 

 nineteenth century what it is. Much as we may praise the 

 gardens of our forefathers, and we have seen how much there 

 was to admire or imitate in them, it is difficult to imagine our 

 gardens deprived of the many floral treasures which have been 

 added to them of late years. Many flowers have become so 

 familiar, that it is hard to picture a garden without them, yet 

 numbers of plants now to be seen almost everywhere had not 

 been brought to our shores one hundred years ago. To bring 



