MODERN GARDENING 315 



Battersea, and others, and are largely attended. On a Sunday 

 morning during November crowds of men may be seen waiting 

 their turn to walk through the green-house where the display is 

 on view. Nor are societies wanting to assist individual effort in 

 the distribution of seeds, and encouragement by rewards for 

 window-boxes. The appreciation of such efforts was shown 

 when a " Country in Town " exhibition was held in White- 

 chapel in 1906 and the two following years, as over 50,000 

 people visited it during the fortnight it was open. 



The changes that have come over the style of gardening 

 are nowhere more apparent than in town parks. There is 

 still a great deal of " bedding out," which is indispensable owing 

 to the drawback of smoke ; but the arrangement of flowers is 

 no longer stiff nor the colours crude. Three times a year, in 

 spring, sum.mer, and autumn, in many of the large parks, the 

 plants are changed, each time producing some new combination 

 of colour. The herbaceous borders have also been largely in- 

 creased, and the margins of artificial lakes have been fringed 

 with aquatic plants. The most conspicuous change of all has 

 been the planting of thousands of bulbs in the grass, which 

 produce charming effects in the spring. Not only have existing 

 parks been beautified, but great efforts have been made to lay 

 out new open spaces in all populous centres. Few of these 

 consist merely of grass and trees, but as a rule a regular garden 

 is kept up as well. 



A further development is the creation of " Garden Suburbs " 

 or even " Garden Cities." The very fact that such a combina- 

 tion of words, which hitherto merely expressed a contradiction 

 in terms, should have come into everyday use, shows perhaps, 

 more than anything else, what a necessity of life a garden is 

 now considered by a large section of the community. 



All that is being done to stimulate a taste for the beautiful 

 in Nature and to foster an appreciation of flowers cannot fail 

 to have an effect on the gardens of the twentieth century. 

 No one can safely prophesy, but there seems every indication 

 that the marked revival of horticulture in all its branches with 

 which the century opened is likely to be a lasting one. With 

 all the improved methods of scientific gardening, and all the 



