APRIL 285 



most delightful way to constant pruning. The more the 

 dear little thing is cut, the better it seems to do. That 

 is the real secret of all these early -flowering shrubs ; 

 they do not exhaust themselves then with leaf -making 

 and growth. Under those shrubs where there are no 

 Violets and no white Arabis, the common Lungwort 

 (Pulmonaria) makes an exceedingly pretty ground-cov- 

 ering; for instance, under a Lilac bush or any deciduous 

 shrub. This kind of spring gardening is only trouble, 

 not expense, as all these plants divide into any number 

 after flowering, and take away the bare look of a spring 

 garden on light soils. When the leaves are out, the 

 place they are in wants nothing and would grow nothing 

 else. In fact, in these kinds of gardens the more the 

 earth can be kept clothed and covered with light -rooting 

 dwarf plants the better, as it saves weeding — always 

 such a terrible business. 



Nothing, I think, tempts me so much to neglect all 

 duties and to forget all ties as gardening in early spring 

 weather. Everything is of such great importance, and 

 the rush of work that one feels ought to be done without 

 a moment's delay makes it, to me at least, feel the most 

 necessary thing in life. A friend wrote to me once : 

 ' The best thing in old age is to care for nothing but 

 Nature, our real old mother, who will never desert us, 

 and who opens her arms to us every spring and summer 

 again, warm and young as ever, till at last we lie dead 

 in her breast.' 



And another wrote : ' Serenity, serenity, serenity and 

 light ! Surely this is the atmosphere of Olympus ; and 

 if we cannot attain to it in age, in vain has our youth 

 gone through the passionate toil and struggle of its up- 

 ward journey to the divine summits.' 



These thoughts fit better the solitude of bursting 

 woods in the real country than the cultivating mania in 



