94 THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



Again, the scarlet runner, if it were not one of our best 

 vegetables, would be ranked among our choicest creepers. 

 The cottager alone knows how to turn this beautiful plant 

 to its two-fold purpose of use and ornament. So a straw- 

 berry bed, if rightly managed, might be as grateful to the 

 sight in spring, and to the smell in autumn, as it is to the 

 taste in summer. 



" The gadding vine " must, I fear, to become fruitful, 

 still be trained to our brick walls, but what prevents '^its 

 trailing also over our arbours and trellis-work (the leaf of 

 some of its varieties is peculiarly graceful) but the fear of 

 its utilitarian aspect ? One may venture to prophesy that 

 ere long the " Passiflora edulis " and " Musa Cavendishii " 

 will be transferred from the conservatory to the hothouse 

 for no other reason than their fruitfulness ; just as now the 

 bitter orange is more often cultivated than the sweet one, 

 though the same expense and attention might supply the 

 household with the latter. This is really carrying matters 

 to an absurd extreme. Flora forfend that the Utilitarians 

 should ever seize upon our gardens, and turn our lawns 

 into kaleyards (thank Heaven ! flowers will remain a living 

 argument against their system till the end of time) ; but 

 let us not be driven to the equal barbarism of the other 

 extreme let us not discard a beautiful tree, or shrub, or 

 flower, the moment we know that it will produce fruit, 

 and condemn it forthwith to the dull monotony and formal 

 propriety of the kitchen-garden. Our fruit-trees may com- 

 plain, with like justice, in the verses of Ovid's 'Walnut; 7 

 if not pelted, they are at least snubbed. 



" Nil ego peccavi : nisi si peccare videtur 



Annua cultori porna referre suo, 

 Fructus obest : peperisse nocet : nocet esse feracem." 



Away, then, with this vulgar and cockney dread of use- 



