ON FLOWERS. 141 



unknown about the country houses, and not only so, but that 

 we can scarcely find the baldest apology for a garden. Now 

 " good friends, sweet friends," (as said Mark Antony, when 

 he harangued the Roman crowd,) let us try to persuade you, 

 for the sake of the lone hours of the good wife and the dear 

 children, and to cheer them up while you are 



" Over the hills and far away," 

 to do something for them, in the way of a garden and a few 

 flowers. 



But let us come down to the practical and see how to bring 

 a garden to pass. I take it, good neighbor, that you are will- 

 ing to spare a small patch, and are further willing to dig it 

 up and enrich it with some of the best compost from yonder 

 two-year old heap of muck and meadow mud, well rotted and 

 broken up, as it must now be. Well, dig it in and spade it 

 down, and shake it up, and turn it over and over again, let it 

 settle down a few days, and then lay it out in beds. If you 

 choose, long rectangular, yet narrow beds will do, so that the 

 middle of them may be easily reached from the path on either 

 side. Or if you have a geometrical eye for circles and semi- 

 circles, and triangles and diamonds, and ellipses, shape out 

 your beds in those forms, and then turf the edges of the beds 

 with narrow strips of turf, the grass of which must always be 

 kept closely shaven, and not be permitted to intrude upon the 

 beds. Then fill up your alleys with the finely sifted ashes of 

 anthracite coal, if you have it, or with gravelly loam, to keep 

 them dry. Now in the borders of these beds, you may put 

 your Iris — or Fleur-de-lis, {Jlower-de-hice, it is often called,) 

 of which there are more than a hundred varieties, many of 

 them exceedingly beautiful. Intersperse them with Phloxes, 

 in varieties, — with Canterbury-Bells, purple and white, — with 

 Fox-Gloves, — with Siveet- Williams, taking care to renew these 

 biennially, — with Bee-larkspur, — with Pinks, — with Primu- 

 lus, — and Trollius. You may also put Hyacinths, and Gladi- 

 loas, (both communis and Jlorihmdus,) but be careful to take 

 these last up before winter, as they would be killed by the 

 frost. In each end of your rectangular beds, if you adopt that 

 form, you may plant your Paonies, of which you will need 



