CHAPTER XVII 



THE PEIMKOSE GAEDEN 



It must be some five-and-twenty years ago that I 

 began to work at what I may now call my own strain 

 of Primroses, improving it a little every year by careful 

 selection of the best for seied. The parents of the 

 strain were a named kind, called Golden Plover, and 

 a white one, without name, that I found in a cottage 

 garden. I had also a dozen plants about eight or nine 

 years ago from a strong strain of Mr. Anthony Waterer's 

 that was running on nearly the same lines ; but a 

 year later, when I had flowered them side by side, 1 

 liked my own one rather the best, and Mr. Waterer, 

 seeing them soon after, approved of them so much 

 that he took some to work with his own. I hold Mr. 

 Waterer's strain in great admiration, and, though I 

 tried for a good many years, never could come near 

 him in red colourings. But as my own taste favoured 

 the delicately-shaded flowers, and the ones most Uked 

 in the nursery seemed to be those with strongly con- 

 trasting eye, it is likely that the two strains may be 

 working still farther apart. 



They are, broadly speaking, white and yellow 



