56 GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT 



their experimental garden, in lieu of time-honoured 

 but worn-out Chiswick. No gift could have been 

 more timely or felicitous. Generous in itself and 

 patriotic, for it was no less a gift to a nation of 

 gardeners like the British people than to the society, 

 there was a peculiar fitness in dedicating to horti- 

 culture the spot which had been lovingly created 

 and tended by so worthy a master of the art ; and 

 perhaps no tribute to his memory could have been 

 more graceful. It is now five years since all this 

 took place. The generous donor has in his turn 

 passed away, but the beautiful garden at Wisley 

 remains, a living memorial of both the maker of 

 it and the giver. 



Necessarily the garden, with its new and greatly 

 extended purpose, has undergone considerable alter- 

 ation and addition, for which there remained ample 

 scope and space. New buildings had to be erected, 

 new trial grounds laid out ; but these do not inter- 

 fere with the original garden. The giant lilies still 

 lift their tall heads under the oaks, and others 

 open their primrose cups in their wonted place 

 under the old apple tree. The ferns dip their long 

 fringes into the clear pool, and the water lilies 

 ride on its surface. The feathery heads of spiraea 

 rise up by the pathway in misty clouds, and the 

 soft spires of yellow and white tree lupins still 

 veil the rough banks. Primrose and iris, pasony 

 and rose follow each other in the same quick pro- 

 cession as of yore, while spring glides into sum- 

 mer ; the famous hedge of Ramanas rose is studded 

 as ever in the autumn with its handsome fruit. 

 If some of these disappear, as in the course of 



