8 ON SOME EARLY GARDEN HISTORY 



be traced to the two great influences which 

 underlie all national arts — climate and religion. 



Nowhere in the world, perhaps, is spring 

 more wonderful than in the high tableland of 

 Persia and the mountainous countries lying east 

 and west of it. Nowhere, certainly, are there 

 such contrasts of climate : summer's heat and 

 winter's cold alternately strip the country bare 

 of colour, but spring pays for all : a brief spring, 

 — only a few weeks, — into which is crowded all 

 the flowering season of the year with a wealth 

 of bloom hardly to be realised in more equable 

 climates such as England and Japan, where the 

 gardens flower on gaily for many months in 

 succession. 



In Persia as the snows melt, their whiteness 

 is rivalled by the delicate sprays of early fruit 

 blossoms as seen across the dark background of 

 the cypress trees ; while the pink mist of almond 

 and apricot flowers shows in little patches of 

 colour against the bare hillsides. Soon the 

 ground under the trees is carpeted with bulbs, 

 scillas, tulips, crown-imperials, narcissus, hyacinth, 

 fritillaries, and iris. Take up a box of old 

 Kashmiri lacquer-work and see how the flowers 

 and colours crowd together. Lilac, jasmine, 



