216 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



contain was constantly superseded by newer books ; 

 faith in herbalism died out ; and the beautiful herbaceous 

 plants were swept away from our gardens. I suppose 

 I did not look out for these books, knowing nothing of 

 them ; but I never saw one of them till I began to be 

 interested in them and to collect them five or six years 

 ago. 



1825. ' The Manse Garden,' which has long been 

 out of print, I have. Canon Ellacombe praises it most 

 warmly and justly at the end of his 'Gloucestershire 

 Garden/ published last year. It has no name and no 

 date, but he says it was written by the Eev. N. Patter- 

 son, at that time nearly seventy years ago Minister of 

 Galashiels and afterwards a leading member of the 

 Scotch Free Kirk. ' It is altogether,' Canon Ellacombe 

 adds, ' a delightful book, full of quaint sentences, shrewd 

 good-sense, and quiet humour ; and the cultural directions 

 are admirable.' This praise I entirely endorse. The 

 chapter at the end, called ' The Minister's Boy,' is 

 especially human, in the modern sense of the word. It 

 is a modest, non-old-fashioned-looking little book, and is, 

 I expect, to be found hidden away in many an old Scotch 

 house. 



1825-1830. 'Cistineae: the Natural Order of Eock 

 Eose,' by Eobert Sweet. This, once more, is a book 

 entirely confined to one family, the extent of which is 

 such a surprise to most of us. Who would have expected 

 that there are thirty-five Cistuses, seventy-eight Heii- 

 anthemums, and about a hundred Eock Eoses ? The 

 drawings are good ; but the colouring, though still 

 by hand, compares very badly with Eedout6's lovely 

 Hose book. Cistuses are such charming plants, opening 

 their papery blooms in the sunlight ; they do very well 

 in the light Surrey soil, but very few of them are really 

 hardy. Cistits laurifolius is hardy with me, and C. 



