202 MY GARDEN 



marshal's baton is in the private's knapsack, so the 

 least gardener amongst us may presently rise to fame 

 and to glory. There is no reason why even you 

 should not some day earn the magic letters, V.M.H., 

 and become for the rest of your life one of the sixty- 

 three great gardeners who have achieved the Victoria 

 Medal of Honour. If, in your benighted ignorance, 

 you ask, " Why sixty-three ? " the answer is that this 

 number celebrates the full years of Queen Victoria's 

 glorious reign. 



Glance with me once more into my garden as we 

 walk to the gate. Here is Fusi-Kin-Go, in many respects 

 the most interesting tree that can adorn any estate. 

 With me he is but an infant, ten feet high ; at Kew a 

 glorious specimen, fifty feet high and more, shakes 

 out its gigantic maiden-hair-like foliage nigh the great 

 conservatories. Gingko biloba was separated from 

 the conifers in 1852, and since that date has enjoyed 

 unique dignity. Its isolated position among existing 

 flora, its narrow geographical distribution, and its 

 terrific antiquity, make it a thing apart, crowned with 

 mystery and the hoar of- eld. It scarcely exists out of 

 cultivation, but is common as a sacred tree in the 

 gardens and temples of the Far East. Gingko's fossil 

 remains occur abundantly in Mesozoic and Tertiary 

 rocks; it follows, therefore, that the strange things 

 which flew in air aforetime were familiar with this 

 tree ; that the flying dragons of the prime rested in 

 his boughs. Without doubt the gay pterodactyl clung 

 to his branches and nibbled his fruit. One may also 

 imagine that strange feathered thing, where bird and 



