RECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 95 



ism. So you must expect some little disappointment ; 

 after all, you know " the saying " There is no rose 

 without thorns " and if any spines on my productions 

 they are not as prickly as those of our modern Rose 

 growers, and do not cost as much as your " American 

 Beauties," and mine, not roses, but my productions 

 "or flowers of rhetorics," will last longer even in a 

 warm place, that is to be taken in consideration. All 

 these few words are to let you know that I have more 

 to say about my or our Amateurs Lender and Bor- 

 rowers of plants. After our exchange of amenities of 

 the four pages of Billingsgate and my answer to it. 

 We had a truce ! even peace without laying down 

 our weapons, that is to say in plain English, without 

 ceasing to grow plants with which we had fought for 

 the sake of glorious Vanity. I said we had peace ; my 

 opponent after a while, when he cooled off, thought we 

 had been foolish, and one day he came hither to our 

 headquarters with the Olive branch, by intuition we 

 shook hands, and the peace was signed. Still, the man 

 had always some of his tricky notions, though inoffen- 

 sive, ~bad habit only. "We looked all over our plants, 

 new and old, it was the time we had the monomania of 

 getting new plants often not worth the water they 

 drank. I had several plants he had never seen as 

 Latania aurea, Latania rubra, Thrinax argentea, etc. He 

 did not know the names and wanted badly to know 



