A GARDEN DIARY 31 
They were just what we wanted; they were 
moved at the right time; they were packed with 
care; they were not unreasonably long on the 
road ; they arrived to all appearance in excellent 
health ; they were received with all the respect 
they deserved, and their wants provided for as 
far as our poor knowledge of those wants enabled 
us to cater for them. Never were elaborate ar- 
rangements less handsomely rewarded. Seasons 
returned, but never have to us returned those 
plants so generously bestowed, so hopefully 
planted. In my private garden-book a list of 
them still exists, and a very black list it is to 
refer to. There they stand, as they were written 
down in all the pride of proprietorship. Un- 
happily a later entry shows a large round O 
standing out prominently against nearly every 
one of them. Now a round O in that book 
signifies Death. 
From this disaster we arose chastened gardeners. 
It was determined that no more guileless plants 
should be brought to such a fate ; no more kindly 
owners exploited for so inadequate a result. Re- 
membering the good, dark, comfortable earth from 
which most of those plants came ; sadly surveying 
the very different earth to which they had been 
consigned, the cause of their doom could hardly 
be called mysterious. 
Friendly gardens, unless labouring under our 
own disabilities, being thus excluded, the question 
