CULTIVATION 39 



D. GENERAL REMARKS ON CULTIVATION. 



There is no royal road to the art of gardening, and it 

 is difficult to give general instructions. Irises vary in 

 their requirements, and under each species it has been 

 endeavoured, in Part II., to give the hints that are 

 necessary. Those who wish to grow Irises must make 

 the attempt those mentioned at the end of Chapter II. 

 are all easy of cultivation and by so doing more is 

 likely to be learnt than by any amount of abstract 

 reasoning about it. Much guidance may be obtained 

 from reading, but observation in one's own garden is 

 absolutely essential. The highest art in gardening is to 

 know almost by instinct what a plant is likely to require, 

 but this comes only by long familiarity, and partly, no 

 doubt, by natural aptitude. We must know as much as 

 possible of natural conditions, and this helps very much ; 

 but the accomplished gardener is often able to go further, 

 and he sometimes provides his plants with better con- 

 ditions than ever they knew in nature. The explanation 

 is simple, viz., that in feral nature there is ever a struggle 

 for existence, and the gardener is sometimes able to 

 interpose a shield, behind which the plants flourish as 

 they never could before. Sometimes, however, plants 

 are so inured to the hardship of the struggle that they 

 cannot do without it. Their very structure has been 

 altered, and the structure suits no other condition. Here 

 we certainly get an idea for the study of the cultivation 

 of Irises. If, indeed, we notice the structure, the habit, 

 and the conformation of any Iris, we shall not be far 

 wrong in our first experimental treatment of it. A 

 bulbous Iris, we know very well, must have a dry 

 season, and we know when that dry season ought to be, 

 if we notice when the plant dies away and when it tries 

 to grow, which it will do precisely according to its own 

 almanac. This observation of season will help us much 



