24 A YEAR IN A LANCASHIRE GARDEN. 



depths of beauty. I am afraid Dr. Forbes 

 Watson's most charming book on Flowers and 

 Gardens is too little known. No modern author, 

 not even excepting Ruskin, has studied the form 

 and the beauty of flowers so closely and lovingly 

 as he has done, and he entirely bears out my view. 

 He says 



" This is one of the many plants which are spoilt by too much 

 meddling. If the gardener too frequently separates the offsets the 

 individual blooms may possibly be finer, but the lover of flowers 

 will miss the most striking charms of the humbler and more 

 neglected plant. The reason is this : the bloom, when first open- 

 ing, is of a deeper orange than afterwards, and this depth of hue 

 is seemingly increased where the blossoms are small from crowded 

 growth. In these little clusters, therefore, where the flowers are 

 of various sizes, the colour gains in varieties and depth, as well as 

 in extent of surface, and vividness of colour is the most important 

 point in the expression of the yellow Crocus." 



Besides the clusters along the shrubberies and 

 the mixed borders, I have a number on the lawn 

 beneath a large weeping Ash ; the grass was bare 

 there, and, though this is hidden in summer by the 

 heavy curtains of pendent boughs and crowding 

 leaves, it was well to do something to veil its 

 desolation in the spring. Nothing can be more 

 successful than a mass of Crocus, yellow, white, 

 and purple. 



