APRIL 87 



allowed on sufferance in odd corners of the kitchen 

 garden. Elsewhere, one knew exactly what to expect 

 on a summer day — Mrs. Pollock geranium edged with 

 blue lobelia, yellow calceolaria bordered with purple 

 beet, ageratum ' Lady Stair ' with a selvage of grey 

 cerastium. In winter — nothing. 



One breathed — one might hear other loyal spirits 

 breathing — sighs for the flowers that used to garland 

 the calendar of childhood ; winter aconites and hepatica, 

 double primroses and jonquils, Madonna lilies and 

 larkspur, bergamot and dittany, starworts and ' naked 

 ladies.' There were plenty of rebels in posse against 

 the despotism of fashion, but they had to wait for a 

 leader combining the necessary qualities of technical 

 knowledge of garden craft and literary aptitude. They 

 found him at last in the person of Mr. Kobinson, who, 

 having prepared the ground by artillery, represented 

 by the volumes on Alpine Flowers (1870), The Wild 

 Garden (1870), and Hardy Flowers (1871), undertook 

 a sustained attack with his weekly journal The Garden, 

 and soon made the enemy's position untenable. A 

 new generation has arisen, eager and understanding 

 in flower- culture beyond any that have gone before; 

 but very few of them recognise in Mr. Robinson the 

 author of revival in the craft. The Garden newspaper 

 has now passed into other hands ; but its founder has 

 established Gardening Illustrated in its place — different 

 in title but similar in precept.^ 



No one who has not lived through it can realise the 



' Since this was written, I regret to say Gardening Illustrated has 

 changed hands, and Mr. Bobinson has retired from journalism. 



