292 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



a valuable help in the restoration to a better and more 

 healthy style of gardening, and one more in keeping 

 with the character of the country parson's garden. 

 There are hundreds of such good old gardens scattered 

 throughout England, of which Charles Kingsley's 

 garden at Eversley and White's garden at Selborne are 

 well-known typical examples. 1 



That such gardens are a real pleasure and refresh- 

 ment to the owners we all know, and they are none the 

 less so when the refreshment is taken in hard manual 

 labour, for many a country parson can bear witness that 

 ' the very works of and in an orchard and garden are 

 better than the ease and rest of and from other labores ' 

 (William Lawson, 1608). But I said also that par- 

 sonage gardens had their usefulness, by which I mean 

 they may be made useful to the clergyman in his 

 parochial work. How this may be done I need not say 

 at any length, because the method that would be very 

 useful in the hands of one would be perfectly useless in 

 the hands of another. I would only say generally, that 

 the love of flowers and gardening is so universal 

 amongst the English peasantry that a country parson 

 will often find a better introduction to a cottager 

 through his garden than by any other means. And 



1 White's garden at Selborne was a typical parson's garden, but it 

 was not the real parsonage. 



