196 A BOOK ABOUT TEE GARDEN. 



trumpeter of my own praises, but as a true knight 

 coming forth to do battle for our royal lady, our Flora, 

 the Queen of Spades ! 



Enter first, if you please, my kitchen-garden. In 

 front of that wall, which has a southern aspect, and 

 in the warm border, between wall and walk, I raise 

 annually from seed such an abundance of greens,* 

 cabbages, cauliflowers, lettuces, &c., as supplies not 

 only my own requirements, but many a cottage-garden 

 besides ; while in the dry sheds built behind this 

 wall, I have a good store of onions, beet, carrots, 

 turnips, &c., which, supplemented from those long 

 rows of celery, and with certain yet more nutritious 

 adjuncts from the butcher (a sober, married man, as 

 Mr. Grundy knows, and a very happy contrast to poor 

 " Sammel Cox "), make the soup, so welcome during 

 these winter months, in those same cottage homes. 



Now step into my miniature houses of glass. 

 Nearest to the boiler (a cruciform, from Meiklejon of 

 Dalkeith) is my hothouse, about the size of a saloon 

 railway-carriage. I make no attempt, of course, to 

 grow stove-plants ; but it is not without its bits of 

 beauty the silver-leafed Fittonia, the red-veined 

 Gymnostachium (which poor Pearce sent us from 

 Peru) ; the narrow-leafed Croton, weeping gold ; the 

 velvety Gesnera (so named by the great Linnaeus after 



* I cannot write the word without recalling a speech made 

 by a poor old woman in Worcestershire to one of my college 

 companions: "Yes, Mr. Allen, I've had a deal o' trouble. First 

 I lost my sister, and then I lost my pig. But there's one thing 

 I ought to say, and say it I will, the Lord's been pratty well 

 on my side this winter for greens ! " 



