XVI LOVE FOR THE GARDEN 423 



kind of mean between the science of the botanist 

 and the empiricism of the working gardener. He had 

 plenty to suggest, but his gardener, like so many 

 of his tribe, had a rooted mistrust of any garden- 

 ing lore culled from books. "Books? They'll 

 say anything in them books." And he shared, 

 moreover, that common superstition, perhaps really 

 based upon a question of labour, that watering of 

 flowers, unnecessary in wet weather, is actively bad 

 in dry. So my father's chief occupation in the 

 garden was to march about with a long hose, water- 

 ing, and watering especially his alpines in the upper 

 garden and along the terraces lying below the house. 

 The saxifrages and the creepers on the house were 

 his favourite plants. When he was not watering the 

 one he would be nailing up the other, for the winds 

 of Eastbourne are remarkably boisterous, and shrivel 

 up what they do not blow down. " I believe I shall 

 take to gardening," he writes, a few months after 

 entering the new house, "if I livelong enough. I 

 have got so far as to take a lively interest in the 

 condition of my shrubs, which have been awfully 

 treated by the long cold." 



From this time his letters contain many refer- 

 ences to his garden. He is astonished when his 

 gardener asks leave to exhibit at the local show, but 

 delighted with his pluck. Hooker jestingly sends 

 him a plant "which will flourish on any dry, 

 neglected bit of wall, so I think it will just suit 

 you." 



