CHAPTER XXIII 



THIRD WEEK IN JUNE 



ROAM the world where we may, there will never be 

 found a sweeter spot of cultivated soil than a British 

 garden. The exotic blossoms and flowering trees of 

 India are magnificent, and the orange groves of Italy most 

 fragrant ; but they lack the well-kept lawn, the fresh sweet- 

 ness of hardier flowers, and, above all, the background of 

 cool greenery, which sets off the whole of the English garden 

 to perfection. Especially beautiful are the gardens of the pre- 

 sent day, freed as they are from the thraldom of the " bedding- 

 out " fashion, and full of all manner of hardy perennials and 

 flowering shrubs from the ends of the earth, which were 

 unknown to our forefathers, but are now quite at home 

 amongst the lilacs and laburnums and sweet pink hawthorn 

 which have adorned our shrubberies for ages. Japan especi- 

 ally has provided us with many flowers, lilies, irises, paeonies, 

 and flowering cherries amongst them, and yet they come 

 from the " land of the chrysanthemum " in rich profusion. 



Mr. William Robinson (the author of "The English Flower 

 Garden ") has done much to beautify our gardens by pointing 

 out the fallacies of various " styles " and the beauties of a 

 garden which arise out of its natural site and conditions 

 without following any stereotyped fashion, so as to have an 

 individuality of its own, and to be a reflex of the beauty of 

 the great garden of the earth. To possess such a garden is 

 only possible to those who love Nature and study her ways ; 

 but every piece of ground, however small, contains possibili- 

 ties of beauty which are too often never discovered by its 

 owner, because the matter is handed over from the first into 



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