BUNGLED GARDENING. 49 



potent labourer, might dispense with Andrew and 

 his worm-eaten crops. 



As in the vegetable, so in the flower department, 

 (for what garden wants somethings in that way?) 

 Andrew cannot remember, and no bump of locality 

 could, where all the lilies in the parish have made 

 their beds for the winter; and what cares he for 

 the sleeping beauties that lie waiting for the sum- 

 mer sun ? Slash goes the murderous spade, with 

 the harshness of a guillotine, through dahlias, jon- 

 quils, crown-imperials, and narcissus-poetica. This, 

 perhaps, you consider of little consequence, but if 

 you do not care for flowers do not have them. It 

 is not natural to combine nursing with destruction, 

 to cherish hope and plan its ruin. Root up all 

 and sow grass, a beauty that never tires, and amidst 

 which, the "wee modest crimson-tipped flower" 

 will spring up of its own accord and defy the scythe. 

 Such a remedy easily suggests itself, and such an 

 arrangement would afford far more pleasure than 

 indifferent and ill kept flower borders, and would 

 display a certain elegance of taste suited to those 

 who have no love for horticulture. Yet this is a 

 thing no more to be met with than ivy substituted 

 for ill trained and fruitless trees. The truth is, 

 there is far more of imitation than of consistent 

 plan in the measures that are every where adopted. 

 All gardeners having walls, have wall trees; and as 

 every garden has its flowerpots, you must have 

 them of course; but it is good to imitate a good 

 design only when imitation is purposed in the exe- 



D 



