PART III 



THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 



" A garden is a beautiful book, writ by the 

 finger of God; every flower and every leaf is a 

 letter. You have only to learn them and he is 

 a poor dunce that cannot, if he will, do that to 

 learn them and join them, and then to go on read- 

 ing, and you will find yourself carried away from 

 the earth to the skies by the beautiful story you 

 are going through. You do not know what beau- 

 tiful thoughts for they are nothing short grow 

 out of the ground, and seem to talk to a man." 



DOUGLAS JERROLD. 



SPRINGTIDE 



THE perfection of gardening was once happily 

 defined as the skill which so plans its result that 

 " it looks, not as if it had been done, but as if 

 it had happened." To shadow, in some slight 

 degree, what may " happen " in a garden, with 

 right forecasting, at the different seasons of the 

 year, is the thought which is intended to thread 

 together these concluding pages. 



The birthday of spring in England is a question 

 everyone has to settle for himself. The authorities 

 fix the 2ist of March; but if a festival so variable 

 must be fixed at all, the old folks' choice of Valen- 

 tine's day is perhaps as seasonable as any, for 



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