MARCH. 43 



doubt only the strong ones survive ; but the strong 

 have by it gained more strength. The enforced rest 

 which is necessary after the shock of the severe winters 

 may make them produce few flowers the following 

 year ; but the rest was just what the plants wanted 

 to enable them to recover all they had lost, and to 

 gain much fresh strength; just as many an active 

 man is brought to a severe illness by overtaxing his 

 strength, but the enforced rest will often bring back 

 strength that he was fast losing altogether; or just 

 as a fruit-tree which bears beyond its strength one 

 year takes a rest in the next year, and then fruits 

 with renewed vigour the year' after. And this teaches 

 us that the true gardener is never overmuch dis- 

 quieted by bad seasons, whether they are seasons of 

 drought or of frost. The half-hearted gardener thinks 

 that all is lost when he has lost one season; but the 

 wise man's caution has a very wide meaning : ' He 

 that observeth the wind shall not sow, and he that 

 regardeth the clouds shall not reap.' The fair-weather 

 gardener, who will do nothing except when wind and 

 weather and everything else are favourable, is never a 

 master of his craft. Gardening, above all crafts, is a 

 matter of faith, grounded, however (if on nothing 

 better), on his experience that somehow or other 

 seasons go on in their right course, and bring their 



