SCOTTISH GARDENS 



does cultivation amount to? I speak not of the 

 florist's craft, which takes a wild flower or shrub 

 and, with infinite cunning, transforms it into some- 

 thing different, so that a wild mother carnation 

 could not recognise her own offspring in the mon- 

 strous Malmaison race (unless it were by scent, as a 

 ewe does her lamb), nor the modest little wild 

 heartsease, which covers with a blue mist the roofs 

 of old log-houses in Norway, claim kinship with the 

 show and fancy pansies which have developed such 

 amazing colours and are judged, like poultry, by 

 their points. For the gardener proper all this work 

 is done by others; his function is to propagate and 

 grow ; his care is so to dispose plants that they shall 

 be spared the intense struggle for life which every 

 wild tree, shrub or herb has to undergo. It is 

 surprising what fine qualities many of our British 

 wild flowers develop under careful handling. We 

 cause the ends of the earth to be ransacked for the 

 furnishing of our borders, while all around us, in 

 meadow and copse, on seacoast and moorland, by 

 riverside and hedgerow, there is material which will 

 respond to thoughtful treatment with a display 

 rivalling that of costly exotics. Among the many 

 excellent, but unfulfilled, intentions of a desultory 

 life has been the purpose to create an all-British 

 garden, wherein nothing should be planted but native 

 vegetation. Any amateur who may feel disposed 

 for the experiment will find some suggestion in 

 Appendix C. Meanwhile, let me give a single illus- 



14 



