172 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



leaves in playful imitation of her grandest efforts — the 

 St. Lawrence, for instance, cutting its way to the sea 

 through its over two thousand miles of flat plains in 

 North America. It has long been said, ' God sends the 

 food, and the Devil sends the cook.' I am sure the 

 same might be said of the owners, the nurserymen, and 

 the landscape gardeners, who most carefully, as a rule, 

 throw away every single natural advantage of the piece 

 of ground they are laying out, and beheve they are 

 ' improving ' ! What would give me the greatest pleasure 

 would be to have the laying-out of a little place on the 

 side of a hill with a fine view to the south and west, and 

 the land sloping away and gently terraced tiU it reached 

 the plain at the bottom. But for this kind of garden 

 clever terracing and a good supply of water are absolutely 

 necessary. 



September 20th. — Towards the end of this month we 

 take up the double Violets — old Neapolitan and Marie 

 Louise are the ones we grow — exchanging runners with 

 friends and neighbours in the spring, as it is not well 

 always to go on growing from the same plants, especially 

 in a light soil, as they deteriorate. In April the old 

 plants are broken up and the runners planted in a good, 

 well-made bed of loam and leaf mould, not much manure, 

 under a wall facing north, to keep them cool and shaded 

 all the summer ; they must be watered if the weather is 

 very dry. At this time of year we make a deep hole in 

 the fuU sun in the kitchen garden, fill this in with the 

 ordinary stuff for making a hot-bed, putting the frame 

 over this, with the sides a little sunk to keep out the cold, 

 and fill up the frame with good mould. It is of supreme 

 importance that the Violets should be planted quite close 

 to the glass of the frame, touching at first, as the mould 

 always sinks a little. If the winter is cold, it helps the 

 Violets very much to put some rough boards a foot away 



