2o6 MORE POT-POURRI 



This receipt will be extremely interesting to many 

 gardeners, and especially those — and they are not few — 

 who are striving to produce flowering Irises from 

 January to August. 



I believe I mentioned before Mrs. Brightwen's 'Guide 

 to the Study of Botany.' I should recommend every 

 amateur gardener to get it. It is a clear, cheap, popular 

 book, and any grown-up person or child who wishes to 

 understand the rudiments of the mysteries of botany 

 could not do better than to have this book as a com- 

 panion. 



Through the year, books on natural history and 

 gardening must be our constant companions to be any 

 real good. We must verify for ourselves what the 

 book tells us. This greatly increases the interest of life 

 in the country, and no one is ever dull or bored who 

 can learn about plants and insects. I know, alas ! 

 that to those who really love to dwell in towns it is no 

 use speaking of such things. The poetry of life is 

 never to be seen by them out of the streets ; and children 

 brought up in large towns rarely acquire a love of the 

 country, I think. I remember when we were children, a 

 friend who came from London to see us used to tell us 

 she could not say her prayers in the country — it was 

 so dreadfully still ! Fancy missing to that extent the 

 city's noise, the rattle of the cabs down the street, or 

 the measured tread of feet along the pavement ! It is 

 lucky, perhaps, that what we are used to is what we 

 like best. 



A collector of old books objected to my great praise 

 of ' Les Eoses,' by Redouts. He says : ' I do not attach 

 the same value to it that you do, and have never found 

 it of much use, as nearly all the Eoses are hybrids and 

 varieties many of which have passed away.' I was no 

 doubt mistaken, but my impression was that the lovely 



