v PREFACE. 



brookside, and in the fields and woods, on Sunday 

 evening, with the children of the school, as I have 

 recorded at page 88. Twenty years after, I had 

 some hours to wait for a train at a great Yorkshire 

 station, and recognized in one of the porters a school- 

 boy, who had often joined in our floral promenades. 

 He invited me to visit his home, and when we reached 

 a long row of houses, exactly alike in size and structure, 

 he stopped and asked : " Now, sir, can you tell me 

 which of these houses is mine ? " I looked, and 

 answered as I looked, "Yes, Joe, that is your home 

 with the little flower-beds in front, and the climbing 

 plant on the wall." And I remember the smile on his 

 face (the smile, and something more), as he said, " I 

 have never forgotten those Sunday walks. I have 

 never lost my love of the Flowers." 



The same happy experience has come to me from 

 efforts to promote among our poorer brethren the 

 gratification and the benefits of a Garden (see page 

 177), and no man rejoices more than I do in the 

 present efforts of our statesmen to extend the Allot- 

 ment System. They will meet with two opponents. 

 Idle men won't have gardens, and ignorant men won't 

 know how to use them. If politicians would send 

 teachers of horticulture into our villages, and would 

 show the men how to grow fruit and vegetables, and 

 the women how to preserve and cook them, I should 

 have some faith in their " Beforrns." 



S. E. H. 



THE DEANERY, ROCHESTER, 

 March, 1892. 



