The Garden under Snow 



good plants which we ourselves have had and lost. 

 As I look through the Botanical Magazine, or the 

 Botanical Register, or Sweet's Flower Garden, I 

 recognise many a flower which I once had and 

 prized, and which perhaps I may never have 

 again ; but having once had it, I look with double 

 pleasure on the old plate that recalls it. And I 

 knew one good old gardener who loved to tell of 

 the so-called yellow cabbage rose x which when he 

 was young grew upon his vicarage walls ; and 

 though he lived to a good old age he never saw 

 the plant again ; but whenever he saw the plate 

 in the Botanical Register it all came back to him 

 with something perhaps of regret, but still more 

 with pleasant memories. 



Thankful as I am for books at all times, I feel 

 doubly thankful for them in such a winter as this. 

 I am afraid we are all of us too much inclined to 

 say with Shakespeare's Archbishop Scroop, " Past 

 and to come seem best, things present worst," 

 but there is no doubt the present winter is so far 

 one of the worst on record. Shakespeare gives 

 us the proverb, " As humorous as winter," and we 

 know what he means ; but in this winter there 

 are no " fitful humours ; " it is one unbroken 

 spell of snow and ice. For three weeks I have 

 not seen the green grass of my lawn, and I fear 

 the effects in the garden must be disastrous. Yet 

 there are gleams of hope. The fine autumn had 

 well ripened the wood of all shrubs, and the deep 



i R. hemisphserica, 



79 



