4 2 Spring 



doth he abide in comfort till the something in the air 

 tells him that life is reviving to the familiar wood ; that 

 the golden whin bloom is gladdening the hillside ; that 

 spring is again alert in grass and tree. But even here 

 he goes by no rule. Some members of his family 

 stay the year round with us, and probably some that 

 leave us never come back, for wild pigeons of all 

 kinds are averse from ' flitting ' when they are com- 

 fortable. 



IN THE GARDEN 



THE ' Complete Gardener ' still remains unwritten 

 on the bookshelves of dreamland ; but that it has not 

 been accomplished is due to no want of trying. What- 

 ever the literary wants of the gardener may be, whether 

 practical information about his craft or poetical musing 

 over it such as he might read in his summer-house, 

 there is an extensive library wherefrom he may 

 choose. But the one excellent book the volume that 

 will instruct the amateur and delight him ; that will 

 be to him encyclopaedia and Shakespeare in one ; that 

 will tell him when to delve, and sow, and graft, and 

 prune, how to cross, and rear, and fertilise, and yet 

 preserve the poetry of lawn, and border, and shrubbery ; 

 that will instruct him as to the duties of the changing 

 seasons, and reproduce in its pages the spirit of the 

 pageant of nature, is still, if I mistake not, to be 

 numbered among things unaccomplished. 



