40 



THE NATURE BOOK 



A SUCCESSFUL SUBURBAN EFFORT AT A WINDOW 

 GARDEN. 



the giants of their race, they disdain to 

 pout and show annoyance in ways excused 

 to fragile plants, there is no comparison 

 between their good behaviour and their 

 best. 



The realisation of the impossibility of 

 finality in garden knowledge is forced 

 uj)on one at every turn. One learns 

 much only to find there is more to learn. 

 Beware of the gardener who tells you that 

 he knows his plants. Be sure that sooner 

 or later his cocksuredness will lead him 

 deep into pitfalls. Did one live to the 

 age of Methuselah there would still be 

 lessons to learn in the world of leaves and 

 flowers. There is no finality here ; there 

 is no last page, no final leaf to turn. 

 The greatest lesson to be learnt in its 

 vast wonder tome is that of deep humility. 



To search into the ways of garden 

 flowers gives keen delight, yet their 

 superficial beauty gives, perhaps, the 

 greatest store of charm to many people. 



The Snowdrop piercing the 

 frozen gi-ound (what strength, 

 what marvellous power in its 

 tiny shoot !), Daffodils shimmer- 

 ing gently in the faintest breeze 

 that blows. Tulips painting the 

 gi'ound with gladsome colours, 

 and so on through the pageant 

 of gaudy summer blossom, soft- 

 toned autumn flower and win- 

 ter's scanty bloom — each and 

 all in their turn appeal irre- 

 sistibly and with deep fascina- 

 tion even to the untutored mind. 

 Can it be said with truth that 

 they are the most fortunate who 

 are content to drink only of 

 the surface joys of gardening ? 

 Lord Rosebery has said of 

 gardens, " I am not sure that 

 this is not one of the cases in 

 which the ignorant have almost 

 the best of it. I admit that 

 when I walk \\ith an expert 

 through a garden I feel an 

 ignorance, a humiliation which 

 is almost abysmal. But I re- 

 collect, after all, that I may be 

 the happier of the two. The 

 expert knows all the weak- 

 nesses and the shortcomings in 

 his garden. On the other hand 

 the ignoramus walks blandly 

 along enjoying without cavil the simple 

 beauty of the flowers, enjoying what 

 Lord Bacon has so finely called their 

 breath, enjoying all their perfume and 

 all the variety which a garden can give 

 without question and without after- 

 thought." 



Yet to praise the picture is not to know 

 of the days and weeks of patient labour 

 that have gone to the mixing of the 

 colours ; none but those who have worked 

 towards its completion realise that the 

 chief jov comes not when the work is 

 done but rather in the doing. 



Gardens are like faces ; there are no 

 two alike in the wide, wide world. Even 

 the uncountable gardens in the suburbs, 

 similar in size, aspect, and in other par- 

 ticulars, have a certain individuality,' 

 each reflecting, to some extent, the 

 character of its designer. As the human 

 face is an index of the mind that works 

 beneath the mask of flesh and blood, 



