HINDRANCES AND HELPS. 309 



their season of potting, when I give up my little gar- 

 den to a careless array of the first laughing flowers 

 of spring. 



Can you tell me of so small a window anywhere 

 that shows so many stages of growth ? Nor have I 

 named all even yet. A rustic arch, steep as the Ki- 

 alto at Venice, overleaps this tiny garden, and bears 

 upon its centre a miniature Swiss chalet, while down 

 either flank, upon successive steps, are little bronze 

 mementos of travel among which the delicate ten- 

 drils of a German-ivy (planted upon a ledge of its 

 own) intertwine and toss their tender leaflets into the 

 doors and windows of the chalet. 



But I am lingering in-doors, when my book is es- 

 sentially an out-of-door book. 



I am not about to lay down any rules for flower- 

 beds or for flower culture ; the gardening books are 

 full of them ; and by their aid, and that of a dexterous 

 gardener, any one may arrange his parterres and 

 his graduated banks of flowers, quite secvndum 

 artem. And I suppose, that, when completed, these 

 orderly arrays of the latest and newest floral wonders 

 are enjoyable. Yet I am no fair judge ; the apprecia- 

 tion of them demands a ' booking-up ' in floral science 

 to which I can lay no claim. I sometimes wander 

 through the elegant gardens of my town friends, 

 fairly dazzled by all the splendor and the orderly 



