6 THE JOY OF GARDENS 



faithful perennials and spring bulbs though the latter 

 were, of course, set in the autumn and daffodils and iris 

 are at home in their own corners. Bleeding hearts and 

 peonies are the earliest joy-bringers, and, however little 

 your plot, keep a place for them. 



After all, a rainy February will have its brighter side 

 if the orders for seeds and shrubs have been mailed and 

 the garden plans made in the evenings. An inclement 

 half-holiday gives time to search for tools in the cellar 

 and to hunt for dahlia roots, cannas, and gladioli put 

 away in November; and the first sunny day will send us 

 looking after the hotbed but that is another story. 



By and by the hands of the clock hint that the lamp 

 will soon burn low. If we are to have our nightly com- 

 pany of an old book it is high time to take one from the 

 shelves. What better than the master of the Utopian 

 Garden Francis Bacon ? 



"And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in 

 the air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of 

 music) than in the land, therefore nothing is more fit for 

 that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants 

 that do best perfume the air. Roses, damask and red, are 

 fast flowers of their smells, so that you may walk by a 

 whole row of them and find nothing of their sweetness; 

 yea, though it be in a morning's dew. Bays, likewise, 

 yield no smell as they grow, rosemary little, nor sweet 

 marjoram. That which above all others yields the 



