32 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING 



Last summer, travelling by railway in the heart of 

 London, a poorish-looking, but respectable man entered 

 our carriage, carrying a basket of really beautiful flowers. 

 He had grown them all himself, in a narrow little plot of 

 ground where every single flower was a personal acquaint- 

 ance. His Lilies were as fragrant as if from a cottage 

 garden in the country. The Madonna-Lily always does 

 grow well for poor people, as we have noticed in many a 

 country garden. 



Many good-hearted people have tried to bring the 

 pleasure of plants and gardens to the City poor. Many of 

 the schemes set out are quite Utopian. We cannot build 

 cities after a plan, they grow, but individual enterprise 

 may do much. I had enjoyed Mr. Cadbury's well-made 

 chocolate for many a year, before I found out a very good, 

 and to me quite new reason for liking it. For forty years 

 the good man had watched the class of people who worked 

 for him in Birmingham, and came to the conclusion that 

 the only practical way of raising them up from the degra- 

 dation of their surroundings was to bring the factory- 

 worker out on to the land, and give him a piece of garden, 

 in which he could enjoy that most delightful of all recrea- 

 tions — the coming in touch with Nature on the soil. So 

 he withdrew his great cocoa manufactory from the town, 

 and established it in the pretty village of Bournville. 

 The move was a great success. 



Town board schools in some places are doing what 

 they can to give their scholars practical instruction in 

 Nature knowledge. In cities this is very diflScult. Seeds 

 do not germinate well in pots indoors. A school garden, 

 however small, is worth anything ; results are so much 

 more satisfactory. The boys' garden at Crook's Place 

 Board School, Norwich, is an example of what may be 

 done in a town. The enclosure measures 50 yards by 

 20, and was formerly an ugly and uninviting corner of 

 the Chapel Field. Builders' rubbish has been cleared 



