2 MY GARDEN 



modesty when I succeed; and I shall hide nothing 

 from you that you may reasonably demand to learn. 

 If in return for this candour you still hold out against 

 my book, you are a churl, and no gardener, and I 

 have done with you. 



There are two sterling tests of a true gardener, 

 and neither has been found to fail. First, take 

 nurserymen's catalogues. Should you love these 

 things ; should your eye brighten when they reach 

 you ; should you make yourself believe them by 

 exercise of pure faith ; should you gloat over their 

 luscious adjectives, and neglect your duties, and waste 

 hours in turning their pages when you ought to be 

 justifying existence ; should you make lists out of 

 them, and pretend that you are only doing it for fun, 

 yet conclude by getting these lists posted ; should you 

 reach a pitch with regard to them when your lawful 

 heirs begin to intercept them and hustle them out of 

 your sight then you are a real gardener, and I shake 

 your horny hand. Catalogues ought to exercise a fatal 

 fascination upon us. They come to me from every part 

 of the civilised earth excepting Japan ; and I dream 

 of a Japanese catalogue soon. But remember, with 

 respect to catalogues, that you must believe what you 

 read. When your heart grows faint, recollect that the 

 men who write these things are artists in their way, 

 and have a sense of colour and size denied to many 

 among us. A good catalogue should be full of 

 poetry, leading delicately up to the prose in the right- 

 hand column where the prices are. For my own 

 part, even now, after all these years, I trust nearly 



