CHAPTER I 



TOWN-GARDENING 



" ril take the showers as they fall, 

 I will not vex my bosom 5 

 Enough if at the end of all 

 A little garden blossom." 



Courage is wanted to write a book about Town-garden- 

 ing. Is there such a thing ? Some would say " No ; 

 cats, fogs, and smuts forbid." Yet how inseparable from 

 London is the thought of flowers ! Can we picture the 

 West End on a summer's day without them ? The dust- 

 laid, freshly sprinkled squares and streets, where behind 

 half-drawn blinds there is the fragrance of many blossoms ; 

 the bright harness of horses jangling as they champ the 

 bit, a knot of flowers at every bridle ; flower-sellers with 

 baskets at all convenient corners, and along the roadway 

 carts of Palms and growing plants bending and waving in 

 the wind ; every man one meets has got his button-hole, 

 and every maiden wears her posy ; even the butcher-boy 

 holds a bud between his thumb and finger, twirling it and 

 smelling at it as he goes. 



The love of flowers and an almost passionate delight 

 in cultivating them has ever been a feature of English 

 life, and of late years the old taste has been renewed and 

 strengthened : no mere whim of fashion's fancy is it, but 

 the outcome of a nation's feeling, deep and true ; and what 

 the English people love and long for, that they will have, 

 despite all difficulties. Thus it comes about that London's 



B I 



