JUNE 



greatly dislike bare earth between niy tfunVps', ahd 

 so far as possible dwarf plants are encouraged to 

 grow amongst the taller ones, to the vast improve- 

 ment of the border's appearance. One makes 

 mistakes no doubt at times, and the carpet is 

 often of a sort that will smother its com- 

 panions as they come up in the spring ; but 

 experience is the only guide worth trusting, and 

 it is better to learn for oneself that saponaria 

 ocymoides will not suffer antirrhinums to emerge 

 safely through its twiggy growth with the power 

 of doing their best than merely to read this in 

 a book and take it for an incontrovertible fact. 

 One learns a great deal more than a mere little 

 detail about gardening from every mistake which 

 one makes in the growing of plants. 



I am an occasional reader of the new fiction known 

 by the name of Garden Literature, and of all the 

 books of this kind which I have seen I like best 

 Elizabeth and her German Garden. One is learn- 

 ing that it is idle to look for instruction in flower 

 culture in these books, and it is no disappoint- 

 ment to discover that Elizabeth's book frankly 

 concerns Elizabeth and nothing else. Her garden, 

 though it appears on the title-page and on many 

 another page of the volume, is obviously incidental, 

 and even the Man of Wrath partakes of this nature 

 as well as the April, May, and June babies. One 

 is fain to realise that although Elizabeth may be 

 rather fond of them, she could very well reconcile 

 herself to life without them. She is profoundly 

 interesting to herself as well as to the reader, 

 and her volume is the Book of Elizabeth with 



