•FLOWERS 



AND 



THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



CHAPTEE i: 



PLEASUEE GARDENS. 



The Pleasure Garden, in all its various forms, can 

 scarcely fail to be the delight, the occupation, the pride, 

 the glory of the English gentlewoman. It is work for 

 the idle and recreation for the busy- "Whatever our 

 station renders desirable in either shape we may get 

 among flowers, trees, and shrubs ; and there all the 

 good qualities so paramount in the women of England 

 find scope. A well cared for garden displays — and dis- 

 plays to good advantage too — the love of home, domestic 

 taste, a wish to please, industry, neatness, taste, and 

 all the sweet household virtues that create home where- 

 ever good women rule, and that make Englishmen, 

 when blessed with such as wives or relatives, so fond of 

 it and of them. Nor is it ladies only that find, in 

 gardening, employment for mind and hands, giving 

 ample return in gratification, health, and pleasure ; for 

 the master too, if he be a man of taste and feeling, 

 likes it no less : only, gardening and the love of a 

 garden are not solitary pleasures ; and I do not think 

 any owner — or gardener either, for the matter of that — 

 ever really delights in it unless those whose smiles are 

 as pleasant to him as the fragrance of the flowers, do so 



B 



