3 6 A GARDEN DIARY 



SEPTEMBER 16, 1899 



forms of frailty are more lamentable 

 than vanity, and few variations of vanity 

 have for some time back seemed to me more 

 stamped with puerility than garden vanity. Can 

 anything be imagined more childish, or less 

 worthy of a reasonable human being, than for 

 A or Z to pride themselves on the fact that 

 whereas Horificus globuratus fl. pi. flourishes 

 like a weed in their gardens, it entirely refuses 

 to grow in those of B or X, despite the fact 

 that B and X have remade the greater part of 

 their borders, in a spirit of slavish emulation ? 

 The same argument applies, even more forcibly, 

 to other details, such as the making of cuttings, 

 or layers, the carrying of tender plants through 

 the winter, the satisfactory growing of vegetables, 

 and so forth ; operations which ought to be 

 approached in the largest and most enlightened 

 spirit, and never for a moment made the subject 

 of mere petty self-satisfaction, or of a narrow and 

 arrogant self-laudation. 



