THE POETRY OF GARDENING. 93 



their possession of it, hanged themselves in their own 

 potting-houses. Well, it figured at every horticultural 

 show for the first five years, was petted, caressed, was 

 fted its admirers continued hourly to increase ; but now 

 it has twenty rival sisters and cousins of the same name 

 and family. Each new debutante is sought after more 

 eagerly than the last; and the original, though still as 

 beautiful and as lustrous as ever, stands comparatively un- 

 noticed in its solitary pot a regular w T all-flower ! 



Even to go back very, very far. In one respect the 

 gardens of the ancients surpassed our own. They did not 

 think a beautiful-blossomed tree unfit for the pleasure- 

 ground merely because it produced fruit. Whereas, with 

 us, no sooner is a tree known to be a fruit-bearer, than it 

 is banished to the kitchen-garden. We cultivate, as an 

 ornamental shrub, the barren almond, whose delicate pink 

 flower, 



" That hangs on a leafless bough," 



is one of Spring's earliest harbingers ; but how few care 

 to admire the blushing bloom of the apple-tree ! and who 

 ever planted some of the more handsome-growing sorts 

 for their effect in the shrubbery, or on the lawn ? If it 

 bore no fruit, we should doubtless prize it more. Can 

 anvthing be more elegant in its habit, its blossom, and its 

 fruit, than a standard morella cherry ? and yet how few 

 flower-gardens tolerate it ! Is anything bolder in the out- 

 line of its leaves and fruit than a standard medlar ? But 

 then it is edible. The rich mulberry colour of the foliage 

 of the pear-tree in September is by far the finest of 

 autumnal tints ; but because we might also gather from it 

 some rich juicy fruit, therefore no one dreams of planting it 

 for its beauty. 



