158 A BOOK OF ENGLISEt GARDENS 



flowers is repaid with much finer results in these 

 tiny plots than in the great Gardens cared for by 

 the best of paid Gardeners and planted with seeds 

 and cuttings of the most expensive kinds. People 

 often wonder what magic power causes the lovely 

 blossoms to bloom so profusely when crowded in 

 the small corner of ground belonging to a work- 

 man's Cottage, the same flowers proving very 

 ordinary under a trained Gardener's care. Love 

 is the magic power, which the flowers, with that 

 exquisite generosity for which they are renowned, 

 repay a thousandfold, by blooming with a lavish 

 abundance and beauty. 



Few realise that flowers live and feel, and that 

 plucking a Rosebud (if not carelessly thrown aside) 

 is an act of appreciation, and produces that 

 marvellous prodigality of blossoms, seen more in 

 Cottage Gardens than elsewhere. In large Gardens 

 the flowers are tied up, straight, and tall, and left as 

 decorative features in the whole effect, while in tiny 

 Gardens the pretty buds are tended with a loving 

 care and grow unfettered at their own sweet will. 



A Cottage Garden ! Who cannot picture one or 

 more, the memory of which are linked with far-off 

 childish days, and the remembrance of the sweet- 

 smelling, gay-coloured, old-fashioned flowers is 

 wafted across the years with a delightful fragrance ? 

 The joy of having lived in one dear little 

 village all through childhood's years is a lifelong 



