154 A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN. 



planted, and finally placed, in the autumn, in a bright 

 bed of healthy young Aucubas, selected for the 

 purpose. Alas, alas ! one moonlight February night, 

 that footman, whom I never could admire, although 

 his calves were grand, left the gate between the park 

 and the pleasure-ground open ; and when I went to 

 take a last look at my fires, the cattle were on my 

 flower-beds chewing their cuds, and their cuds were 

 composed of my variegated kale, which they had 

 brutishly mistaken for cow-cabbage ! 



I have no time to speak of harmonies and grada- 

 tions in colour, of rings, ribbons, pyramids, and 

 baskets ; but I must say a few words about foliage, 

 because I have heard some folks, who should know 

 better, say that, prate as we may about spring 

 flowers, we can speak nothing in praise of spring 

 foliage. No praise ! Why, after admitting a defeat 

 in the darker leafage and sounding a retreat on our 

 creeping bugle (ajuga reptans) before the coleus, 

 amaranthus, iresine, and beet ; and after a further 

 concession that we have no single leaf so beautiful as 

 Mrs. Pollock, we advance our whole army for a 

 general engagement, with no fear of the result, and, 

 in the poetical words of Transatlantic fervour, " we 

 pounds the univarse smart." What foliage is so 

 attractive in the summer-garden as that of the gold- 

 tipped stonecrop (sedum acre aureum), of the daisy, 

 which has leaflets of green and gold (bellis aucuba- 

 folia), or of the exquisite variegated thyme ? Is not 

 the golden feverfew brightest in spring ? Are not the 

 variegated arabis, euonymus, and periwinkle, the 

 silvery cerastium, centaurea, gnaphalium, and santo. 



