OCTOBER 257 



without its clusters of the flowers of the day, the violet-rayed 

 Michaelmas daisy. 



Do not many of us wish for the Summer days of golden 

 gladness that now are over, as we look upon the fallen petals 

 of the last perfect rose? Do we not sigh for the pleasure 

 that the hours of work in the garden gave us, because soon 

 we must say farewell to our favourites as they fall into their 

 Winter sleep, longing for the time when they shall awaken 

 and their bright faces smile again into our own ? We live in 

 an age when the quiet peace that a garden affords us can be 

 enjoyed to the utmost, for, from out of the whirl of this 

 century of hurry and excitement, where could sweeter peace 

 be found ? Not solely on this account is the pleasure of a 

 garden greater, but because to-day the art of gardening has 

 arrived at perfection, and new and beautiful plants are added to 

 its lists day by day and are within the reach of all. The Hon. 

 Miss Alicia Amherst says in her beautiful book, " The History 

 of Gardening in England " : " Little could be thought of 

 the quiet pleasure of a garden while William I. and his sons 

 ruled the conquered English with a rod of iron . . . while 

 men's minds were occupied with the Crusaders." But as 

 these things ran their course, gardens were thought of, and 

 loved more and more. How delightful it is to-day to come 

 across an old garden, to wander beneath its " pleached alleys " 

 or bypaths of dipt yews, where still may be traced the quaint 

 fancies of our forefathers, in clipping yews to represent a pea- 

 cock and various birds, and other devices dear to the heart of 

 the arborator; to stand by a ruined fountain or the moss- 

 grown sundial, to trace thereon some such mottoes as " Time, 

 the devourer of all things," "Sunlight is recorded by shadow, 

 shadow by sunlight." 



