Faults in Gardening 



world of novelty as well as of brilliance 

 and choiceness, and hence a twofold 

 reason points us to the more conspicuous 

 beauty of the foreign flowers. But this 

 is not our only ground for selecting 

 foreign plants. Cultivation is, in many 

 cases, extremely beneficial to plants, but 

 in other instances it is difificult to com- 

 pete with the wilding, and almost im- 

 possible to surpass it. In Gorse — such, 

 for instance, as we see in Devonshire 

 — -Foxglove (unless, to borrow an idea 

 from Ruskin, a greater number of its 

 blossoms could be persuaded to come 

 out simultaneously), or Broom, no im- 

 provement of any kind could well be 

 suggested. These plants would be none 

 the better for enlargement of the flowers, 

 and both shapes and colours are already 

 as fine as they can be, so that meddling 

 further would only spoil them, as we 

 see to be the case in the Double Gorse. 

 Now unless the cultivated flower in 

 some way surpasses the wilding, it must 

 inevitably sink below it in effect. For 

 one thing is entirely lost in the garden 

 — the beauty derived from the native 

 mode of growth. Look at the Bluebell 

 Hyacinths, when their countless myriads 

 are poured forth beneath the trees like 

 129 I 



