CHAPTER VII 



THE HEART OF THE YEAR 



The garden lover who is occupied away from home, July 

 possibly in a town office, for the greater part of every 

 week day, enjoys his garden to the full in July. The 

 town streets are suffocatingly hot in the dog days. The 

 dust nuisance is at its worst. The odour from the 

 motors has a peculiarly offensive and penetrating quality. 

 The gardenless townsman sighs for the green, sweet 

 countryside, or for the cool breezes of the sea-coast, 

 when the shade thermometer stands at 85°, and the 

 breeze seems strong enough to carry to his nostrils 

 only the smell from exploded petrol charges. He pants, 

 he stews, he groans at the too lagging approach of his 

 holidays. 



Things are not so bad with the suburbanist, who has 

 a cheerful and umbrageous garden. The thought of it 

 braces and heartens him. He buckles to his affairs with 

 greater zest from thinking of the cool and shady corner 

 which he has made at " Sunnyside " or " Roselea," and 

 the office hours pass the quicker. He steps out briskly 

 when he turns homeward, and thinks of the fragrant, 

 blossomy hours which he will pass with his wife and 

 bairns in the garden before bedtime comes. 



Alike with flowers, fruit, and vegetables, we are in 



the heart of the garden year. The garden is at its 



fullest and fairest. Roses are a blaze of beauty. Carmine 



Pillar is in the " lustihood of its young powers," Crimson 



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