SPEING. 71 



they have no lack of water, or air, or thinning, or supports, 

 or indeed in any of their needs. Then mark how much 

 longer they will keep in flower than the old plant, — that is, 

 on the supposition that they belong to the section of her- 

 baceous plants suitable for that experiment ; — note down 

 the result. Try again and again, if you should fail in every 

 one instance, because you did not hit just on the exact Avay 

 it should be done at first. There is not a plant in the 

 whole garden that I would let pass at the spring dressing 

 without trying some experiment or another with it, so that 

 I might know as much about it as anybody else, if not 

 more. It must be very tiresome to have to send to the 

 Cottage Gardener to ask every little thing one would like 

 to know about flowers ; and if so, why not try and learn by 

 experiments 1 which, if they do not turn out to any good, 

 no one need be the wiser. Depend upon it, the spade, the 

 fork, and the trowel at work on a long border of old 

 plants, could turn up more facts than the pen of the best 

 writer amongst us." 



Taking notes of our experiments as here advised is very 

 necessary, if we really wish to profit by experience ; for it 

 is rarely safe to trust one's memory while trying experi- 

 ments, and inaccurate information is w^orse than none. 

 Old garden diaries have an interest of their own only 

 known to those who have kept such. The comparison of 

 one year with another, as to the time of plants flowering 

 and birds beginning to sing, is sometimes curious from the 

 diversity ; but more generally I think one is struck rather 

 with the fact of how short the difference in time actually 



