JODENAL OF HOETICULTUEE XSD COTTAGE GAEDENEB. 



[ Jdnnary 5, 1S71. 



well be might, many an illustration in bis sermons. Was that 

 a man to he laughed at ? Certainly not. He had found a de- 

 lightful, health-giving hobby ; how much better was he situated 

 than the multitudes of travellers who, aimless and yawning, 

 pass through Europe with Hurray in their hand. Oh 1 bless- 

 ings upon every hobby that takes a man face to face with 

 Nature. I like to hear an artisan grow eloquent over the 

 beauties of his pets, be they fowls, or pigeons, or canaries. I 

 like to see the entomologist start off with his net for the 

 country. 



" See to the shady grove he wings his way. 

 And feels in hope the rapture of the day ; 

 Eager he looks : and soon to glad his eyes. 

 From the sweet bow'rs by Nature formed, arise 

 Bright troops of virgin moths and butterflies." 



But to have full enjoyment you must take care and pains; as 

 one of our writers well said in regard to poultry as a hobby, 

 "to be fond of poultry is not merely to keep cocks and hens, 

 but to multiply surface, to overcome difficulties, to supply 

 that which is wanting, to concentrate (this is the point) on a 

 cock and five hens the iuterest enjoyed by those who have 

 thousands of acres and hundreds of fowls." Perhaps viewed 

 in this light is the special value of florists' flowers — flowers 

 which I humbly think are now too much neglected ; but what 

 happiness do they give ! The man with an atom of backyard 

 yet has a fund of enjoyment in it because of his Auricula 

 stand, or his two dozen or so pots of Carnations or Picotees. 

 One of my boyhood's friends was a tailor, a careful, com- 

 fortably-off man, who sought not his happiness at the public 

 bouse, but in his little town garden, where he found room for 

 prize Carnations and Gooseberries, fancy pigeons and bees. 



Then there is the time which wiU come, or has come to us, 

 the time — 



" When life's day draws near the gloamin." 



When as Crabbe's middle-aged hero said — ■ 



'' I rode or "n-alked as I had done before, 

 But now the bounding spirit was no more. 

 I showed my stranger guest those hills sublime. 

 But said, ' The view is poor, we need not climb.' 

 For home I felt a more decided taste. 

 And must have all things in my order placed ; 

 In fact, I felt a languor stealing on : 

 The active arm, the agile hand were gone. 

 I loved my trees in order to dispose ; 

 I numbered Peaches, looked how Stocks arose." 



And had Crabbe lived in these days, he might, perhaps, have 

 added something of this sort — 



'* For quiet pleasures I began to seek. 

 Kept fancy pigeons, learned to play beziciue." 



A garden and home-bound pleasures have, we know, special 

 charms for the retired and middle-aged man, and a happy 

 thing it is when he takes to them. 



One caution or two as to hobbies. Always bear in mind 

 that people have various tastes, and do not cram your own 

 special hobby down everybody else's throat. Then do not 

 iollow your hobby in order to stifle serious thoughts, nor 

 love your pets better than your fellow Christians. All must 

 be loved in order : the Creator first, then our fellow men, then 

 the lesser, because soul-less, works of His creation. We should 

 also cttltivate a useful mode of applying observation. Bearing 

 upon this, Addison in "The Spectator" (Does any body 

 read it now in these sensation-novel days?) says, " My friend 

 Sir Eoger is very often merry with me upon my passing so 

 much of my time among his poultry. " The Spectator was 

 spending a month with the worthy knight at bis country seat 

 in Worcestershire, who complained, " that his ducks and geese 

 bad more of his guest's company than himself." Addison 

 replied, " I am infinitely delighted with those speculations of 

 'Nature which are to be made in a country life, and as my 

 reading has lain very much among books of natural history, 

 I cannot fail to recollect upon these occasions the several 

 remarks which I have met with in authors, and to compare 

 them with what falls under my observation." Xow, this 

 Journal does much in leading minds to the gardens, and to 

 nature generally, and to the poultry yard especially, and so 

 contributes, I believe, not a little to wholesome recreation. 

 Among all longings none are so strong as the town man's 

 longings for the country. " I long," said a Londoner to me, 

 " to lie on a summer day on my back on the grass and look up 

 into a tree." Even where the whole day is not spent in a 

 town, yet if the day's occupation be in-doors the same feeUng 

 for bringing nature, or a reminder of nature near, is not un- 

 frequently seen. The shoemaker and the tailor, and others of 

 like in-door occupation are, and always have been, among the 



most ardent bird-fanciers ; the goldfinch in bis cage bringing 

 the Forze common and the healthy glow there focnd, befortj 

 the man's eyes and feelings, shut up though he be in a hot 

 workshop. 



I had an instance to the point brought before me this last 

 spring. I was spending the day in one of the most lovely 

 spots in this county, amidst scenery bordering upon the bold 

 and romantic. I had walked through the wild wood that 

 covered a hill top, from either side of which was a noble view. 

 Then descending, I wandered along the margin of a most me- 

 andering trout stream that glittered in a more than spring 

 sunshine. It was one of those rare and superb spring days, 

 occurring rarely, when the weather is summer anticipated. 



" The young lambs were bleating in the meadows, 

 The young birds were chirping in their nests ; 

 The yoUDg fawns were playing with the shadows ; 

 The yotmg flowers were blowing toward the west." 



Still I wandered on in the bright sunlight by the glittering 

 stream, when I came upon an old, very old, paper mill, with its 

 heaps upon heaps of rag bundles outside, the whole one blotch 

 on fair nature, a proof how man's nastiness can mar God's 

 beautiful earth. I almost cursed the thing for being there by 

 the bright stream and the wild, yet, being the west of England, 

 weU-clothed landscape. Loathing I entered the old mill, and 

 was soon among the dirt-coloured machinery, inside the dust- 

 coloured mouldy walls, coarse shed-like wallc. where all day 

 long the wheels were droning and turning. Pinch-faced men 

 in paper caps, old weasel-like withered men, were moving 

 slowly here and there. Young men were there too, and women, 

 and girls. Coarse paper in all stages of manufacture, from 

 pulp to parcels ready for sale, was around me. All, wheels, 

 budding, living creatures, all, exactly like a scene in the heart 

 of a manufacturing town, and I could not believe that outside, 

 just outside the cobweb-covered windows was a lovely scene in 

 all its spring beauty. I sickened at the sight, when turning I 

 saw on a rude partition of unpainted and worm-eaten boards a 

 picture, a good engraving, of a Eose, with some pretty lines 

 beneath it. How dearly must the one who placed that picture 

 there have loved flowers ; gathered flowers would soon have 

 died in such an atmosphere. It was only a picture flower that 

 would last. The picture cheered my eyes, and seemed to say 

 there was something better in the world than rags, and pulp, 

 and coarse mercantile paper ; and though the wheels kept on 

 droning and turning, and dinning my ears with their metallic 

 noise, yet the Eose, and thoughts connected with it, in a mea- 

 sure atoned for all. We are told that Dickens had always before 

 his eyes in his study at Gadshill vases of flowers, and that he 

 never worked happily unless in their presence. Flowers may 

 be regarded so variously. They call up reading and memory in 

 regard to them, as one says — " It is always pleasant, walking in 

 a garden, to remember the native home of the flo%ers, and 

 imagine them surrounded by their own scenery. It gives them 

 a new interest and a fresh beauty. We see them growing ; the 

 dewy Auriculas among the moss and snow of the Lower Alps ; 

 the Guernsey Lily in the Japanese meadow ; the Banunculus 

 in the fields of Cyprus; the rich-dyed Pelargonium in the rank 

 kloof of the Caffre frontier ; the flaunting Dahha in the plains 

 of sunny Mexico ; the burnished Esehscholtzia in the sands of 

 golden California ; the gay yellow bladders of the Calceolaria in 

 the forests of Chili. Tliink of them with these surroundings, 

 and you will see how the flowers fit their own special countries. 

 A Caffre beauty would twist a thick cluster of dark crimson 

 Pelargonium in her black oily hair. The dashing Mexican 

 horseman, all leather and lace, would stick a huge white Dahlia 

 in the band of bis enormous sombrero. A Japanese lady would 

 pace over the bamboo-bridge with a, Guernsey Lily carried like 

 a sceptre in her hand. Just so it is with vegetables ; they, too, 

 have their history, their legends, and their poetry. It is not 

 niunteresting to recall whence they came, and how they reached 

 in slow procession their great parliament house in Covent 

 Garden. Crusaders, merchants, pilgrims, and monks brought 

 them to us from eastern hill and southern plain, from northern 

 meadow and from western forests." 



But now let me turn to " our Journal," a great promoter, I 

 know, of happiness in many homes, where its advent is looked 

 for with pleasure, as said to me one constant reader of every 

 one of its pages — " I look for it as I used to look for a love- 

 letter from the post." I have met it this year in cottage, villa, 

 and even in the precincts of a royal palace. Shows, I hope, 

 will contain in future a more varied collection of birds, as did 

 the Portsmouth Show, of which the report opened thus — " Com- 

 bined with poultry and Pigeons the Committee offered for the 



