172 WOOD AND GARDEN 



weary mixture, and exhibiting the usual distressing 

 symptoms that come in the train of the ministrations 

 of the jobbing-gardener. In size it may have been a 

 third of an acre, and it was one of the most interesting 

 and enjoyable gardens I have ever seen, its master 

 and mistress giving it daily care and devotion, and 

 enjoying to the full its glad response of grateful 

 growth. The master had built with his own hands, 

 on one side where more privacy was wanted, high 

 rugged walls, with spaces for many rock-loving plants, 

 and had made the wall die away so cleverly into the 

 rock-garden, that the whole thing looked like a garden 

 founded on some ancient ruined structure. And it 

 was all done with so much taste that there was nothing 

 jarring or strained-looking, still less anything cock- 

 neyfied, but all easy and pleasant and pretty, while the 

 happy look of the plants at once proclaimed his sym- 

 pathy with them, and his comprehensive knowledge 

 of their wants. In the same garden was a walled 

 enclosure where Tree Pseonies and some of the hardier 

 of the oriental Rhododendrons were thriving, and there 

 were pretty spaces of lawn, and flower border, and shrub 

 clump, alike beautiful and enjoyable, all within a small 

 space, and yet not crowded — the garden of one Avho was 

 a keen flower lover, as well as a world-known botanist. 

 I am always thankful to have seen this garden, 

 because it showed me, in a way that had never been 

 so clearly brought home to me, how much may be 

 done in a small space. 



