A Little Maryland Garden 29 
garden, nursery, fruit, and flower gardens, 
seemed to promise guidance in every emer- 
gency. But the writer of this ponderous 
book was as prosy an old gentleman as ever 
wrote. I made sure, from his serious style, 
that he was a Quaker, and was much sur- 
prised some years later to learn that he was 
an Irishman. His most confusing habit was 
to recommend four or five different months, 
without favour, as ‘‘the proper season”’ 
in which to sow the seeds of a number of 
different plants. Thus at any time from 
February to June one might sow the seeds 
of “rocket, catchfly, Tangier peas, Venus 
navelwort, primroses, Canterbury bells, car- 
nations, candytuft, mallow, lychnis,’’ and so 
on with a list that made my brain swim. 
He had tables at the back of the book of 
perennials, annuals, and biennials, that were 
the most helpful things in it to me. These 
lists gave both their scientific and common 
names, the latter sounding quaintly enough 
to us now; such as lady’s smock, for carda- 
mine, devil in the bush, and love in a mist, 
