THE GARDEN, TEKKINGTON HALL, YORK. 



THE DELIGHTS OF THE GARDEN 



By H. H. THOMAS 



FLOWERS." says Ruskin. one of the 

 greatest writers on the beautiful in 

 Nature, " seem intended for the 

 solace of humanity. Children love them ; 

 quiet, tender, contented, ordinary people 

 love them as they grow ; luxurious and 

 disorderlv people rejoice in them gathered. 

 They are the cottager's treasure ; and in 

 the crowded town, mark, as with a little 

 broken fragment of rainbow, the windows 

 of the workers in whose hearts rests the 

 covenant of peace." Here is a tribute to 

 that real love for flowers and gardens that 

 lies somewhere in the hearts of all of us. 

 Deep, deep and downtrodden though it 

 may be by heavy toil in crowded cities, 

 buried beneath years of weary struggle in 

 sunless tenements, it yet lives and ever 



and anon bursts forth in a glory that gains 

 an added radiance from the unnatural 

 surroundings that encompass it. The 

 depth and vigour of its ramifications 

 are betokened now and again by an 

 occasional bursting into bloom amid 

 strange and sad environment, never more 

 pathetic than when the red-coated 

 geranium and creejiing jenny light up the 

 window-sills in courts and' alleys upon 

 which the sun scarce ever shines. Was 

 that inborn love for flowers ever more 

 patheticallv and more wonderfully shown 

 than by the artisan in the MitUands, 

 who, asrecounted by Dean Hole, removed 

 the very coverlet from his bed to protect 

 his favourite plants from frost ? 



Xo branch of Nature Study has a finer 



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