80 A BOOK -ABOUT T3E 



taking a calenture, lie cackled lowly (probably of 

 green fields), and leaping overboard, drowned him- 

 self!" 



It is, I say, a sorrowful story, especially when we 

 reflect that under happier circumstances this cock 

 might have reached- a good old age, and seen his 

 daughters laying peacefully around him, and his sons 

 a-fighting one another like anything. 



Analogously, I go on to consider whatever would 

 become of us gardeners and florists if we were sen- 

 tenced to an everlasting summer if our conserva- 

 tories within, and our gardens without, were, day after 

 day, and Week upon week, to glow with undiminished 

 splendour, and make the air heavy with exhaustless 

 odours. Would not our eyes be dazzled into weariness, 

 aching and winking, as when in our early youth we 

 overdid them with our new kaleidoscope ? Would 

 not our nostrils finally be enforced to entreat the 

 intervention of our forefingers and thumbs, to 

 supplicate the presence of our pocket-handkerchief, 

 lest we should die of aromatic pain ? 



Our powers of appreciating the beautiful are 

 finite, soon tire, and need repose. What appetites 

 we bring home from the loveliest scenery ! How 

 thirsty we were at Tiutern ! What a luncheon we 

 made at the Trossachs hotel ! How we rush from 

 the pre-Raphaelite glories of the exhibition to our 

 strawberries and iced cream at Grange's ! How 

 palatable the oysters, how creamy the stout, how 

 delightfully appropriate the bread and butter, when 

 we have attended a Tragic Play ! 



Hence, horticulturally, I can welcome winter with 



