282 MORE POT-POURRI 



stained green, according to taste. Mr. Watson, of 11 

 Orchard street, London, makes them to order. For 

 breakfast or luncheon we use the small tables apart, 

 even when our party is complete. But at dinner this 

 gives so much more trouble in waiting that we put them 

 together. 



April 8th. — This year gardening knowledge is given 

 to the public cheaper than ever. There is a new penny 

 handbook on gardening to be got at any railway station 

 (Ward, Lock & Co.). It is quite good, giving all the 

 elementary instruction necessary. 



The uses of petroleum tubs in a garden are endless. 

 I get my oil now from London, and so do not return the 

 barrels. Mr. Barr told me the other day he was knock- 

 ing the bottoms out of some, sinking them, one below 

 the other, with a pipe in between, and puddling them 

 with stiff clay at the bottom ; then he was going to 

 plant them with specimens of the beautiful new French 

 Nymphasas (Water Lilies), M. Marliae's hybrids being 

 the most beautiful perhaps of all. A full, excellent, and 

 detailed account of the cultivation of these Water Lilies 

 is to be found in Mr. Robinson's last edition of ' The 

 English Flower Garden.' As is natural at my age, I 

 have a most elderly affection for types and parent 

 plants, because, as a rule, they are less expensive to buy, 

 and much more willing to be managed when one has got 

 them. But I do not say this without from my heart 

 giving all honour to cultivators of hybrid plants. 



Tub arrangements can be made of endless use even 

 in the smallest gardens and back yards, if sunny — never 

 forgetting the precious rain-water, which every slight 

 slope in the ground makes it easy to collect if the tubs 

 are sunk level with the ground. I mention things again 

 and again, knowing well in our full modern lives how 

 useful it is merely to remind. This year I have sunk a 



