168 A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN. 



their noses, as if it was half a mile off, and then, 

 having picked out the poorest specimen in all the 

 place, pronounces the whole affair a failure, they 

 little thinks what time, and trouble, and what money 

 too, has been spent to produce what they see, or 

 rather I should say, what they won't see, before them. 

 Just let me try to describe what has to be done 

 aforehand. First of all, some five or six sperrity 

 young gardenerSj led on by a brace of rich amateurs, 

 as full o' beans and as keen to show their paces as a 

 pair of London Park 'osses they meets and passes a 

 resolution, that nothing but a flower-show on an 

 extensive scale can save the county from disgrace. 

 They forms a committee, and they calls a general 

 meeting. A few more lively florists turn up, together 

 with a timber merchant, who proposes himself to the 

 company as stage-manager ; three publicans, glowing 

 with desire to refresh the weary and athirst ; a meriv 

 individual who has to do with tents, and who "hopes 

 that having canvassed their votes, they will kindly 

 vote for his canvas ;" and a party who has got 

 the best field in all England for a flower-show, and is 

 agreeable to let it for two days on payment of half of 

 its yearly rent. Then the editor of the local news- 

 paper, who has just discovered all of a sudden what 

 a tremendous interest he takes in horticulture, and 

 who has offered to do all the printing at a mere 

 nominal profit (of something like 300 per cent.), he 

 writes a beautiful piece in the Dull-borough Eagle 

 about this influential, energetic, and successful 

 meeting, and invites the earnest attention of his 

 readers to an advertisement, which will be found in 



