264 WOOD AND GARDEN 



and lo-ved, and every encouragement is freely offered 

 to those who will improve old kinds and bring forward 

 others. 



And now that bedding as a fashion no longer exists, 

 one can look at it more quietly and fairly, and see 

 what its uses really are, for in its own place and way 

 it is undoubtedly useful and desirable. Many great 

 country-houses are only inhabited in winter, then per- 

 haps for a week or two at Easter, and in the late 

 summer. There is probably a house-party at Easter, 

 and a succession of visitors in the late summer. A 

 brilliant garden, visible from the house, dressed for 

 spring and dressed for early autumn, is exactly what 

 is wanted — not necessarily from any special love of 

 flowers, but as a kind of bright and well-kept furnish- 

 ing of the immediate environment of the house. The 

 gardener delights in it ; it is all routine work ; so 

 many hundreds or thousands of scarlet Geranium, of 

 yellow Calceolaria, of blue LobeHa, of golden Feverfew, 

 or of other coloured material. It wants no imagina- 

 tion ; the comprehension of it is within the range of 

 the most limited understanding ; indeed its prevalence 

 for some twenty years or more must have had a 

 deteriorating influenqe on the whole class of private 

 gardeners, presenting to them an ideal so easy of 

 attainment and so cheap of mental effort. 



But bedding, though it is gardening of the least 

 poetical or imaginative kind, can be done badly or 

 beautifully. In the parterre of the formal garden it 



