350 BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS 



When a townsman gets the gardening fever, the distance to 

 which he transfers himself from the deadly town centre is regu- 

 lated by his circumstances. If he has an independence, however 

 small, he goes into the country. This causes an interchange which 

 maintains a steady occupancy of cottages. In view of what is 

 called the "rural exodus," it might be expected that half the 

 cottages up and down the countryside are empty. The truth is 

 that it is difficult to get one. But the townsman does not always 

 get as far as the country proper, owing to the exigencies of his 

 daily occupation. He may have to spend five and a half days a 

 week in a town, earning a salary that does not permit of a long 

 railway journey. Hence he lives in the town suburbs, or in a 

 smaller town not far away that gives, horticulturally speaking, 

 suburban conditions. 



We may expect the garden movement to go on. It will break 

 out in Suburban Garden Associations and in Garden Cities. It 

 will mean in either case gardening by men who are not trained 

 horticulturists, and who can only give two or three hours of the 

 day to their hobby, except on Saturdays, when they will have the 

 afternoon as well as the evening. Further, it will mean gardening 

 among houses. The farther we get from the town centre, the 

 larger we may expect to find the garden, and the purer we may 

 expect the air to be ; but the conditions of labour will remain the 

 same it will be unskilled, and it will be restricted to certain 

 leisure hours. 



The really considerable degree of success which has been 

 achieved by amateur gardeners under such conditions is a sufficient 

 proof of the ready way in which nature responds to any fairly well 

 directed effort to grow plants, and the obviously beneficial effects 

 of the work, not only in beautifying one particular home, but in 

 improving the health, spirits, and character of the householder, are 

 in the highest degree encouraging. Two things are quite clear: 

 the first, that it is not necessary for a man to undergo a training 



