FEBRUARY 25 



themums that had the diameter of a dinner- 

 plate ? Compare a list of to-day with one of 

 even half-a-dozen years ago can there be such 

 deterioration in plants ? And is there to be 

 no more that keen stimulant given to one's 

 imagination which the old catalogues offer ? 

 One is indeed far gone in worldly wisdom 

 when he no longer pins his faith to those pro- 

 fuse and mammoth flowerings, and when he 

 once begins to distrust the colourings set forth 

 on the covers he is a lost man. Let the photo- 

 grapher turn his lenses on the locking-pleasant 

 faces of his clients, and leave the picturing of 

 garden things to the freer brush and pencil of 

 the gardener's choice. 



A real gardener is, as all the world knows, 

 a most honest man. One thinks of him, in- 

 stinctively, as going to church on Sunday, his 

 wife by his side, and a rosy tale of little off- 

 shoots following happily behind. There is a 

 clove-pink in the buttonhole of his best coat, 

 and a sprig of citronella decorates the family 

 hymn-book. One allows him a glass of some- 

 thing-and-water, now and then, to keep out 

 the damp, but for generosity within discreet 

 bounds for truthfulness except under great 



