A GARDEN DIARY 31 



They were just what we wanted ; they were 

 moved at the right time ; they were packed with 

 care ; they were not unreasonably long on the 

 road ; they arrived to all appearance in excellent 

 health ; they were received with all the respect 

 they deserved, and their wants provided for as 

 far as our poor knowledge of those wants enabled 

 us to cater for them. Never were elaborate ar- 

 rangements less handsomely rewarded. Seasons 

 returned, but never have to us returned those 

 plants so generously bestowed, so hopefully 

 planted. In my private garden -book a list of 

 them still exists, and a very black list it is to 

 refer to. There they stand, as they were written 

 down in all the pride of proprietorship. Un- 

 happily a later entry shows a large round O 

 standing out prominently against nearly every 

 one of them. Now a round O in that book 

 signifies Death. 



From this disaster we arose chastened gardeners. 

 It was determined that no more guileless plants 

 should be brought to such a fate ; no more kindly 

 owners exploited for so inadequate a result. Re- 

 membering the good, dark, comfortable earth from 

 which most of those plants came ; sadly surveying 

 the very different earth to which they had been 

 consigned, the cause of their doom could hardly 

 be called mysterious. 



Friendly gardens, unless labouring under our 

 own disabilities, being thus excluded, the question 



