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FLORA AND SYLVA. 



gardens in Cornwall, which does not 

 tell the same story to all who have eyes 

 to see and hearts to care for the thing 

 itself, and not merely for incoherent 

 talk about it. The only sad thing is 

 that such words must be said again and 

 again ; but we live in a time of much 

 printed fog about artistic things — the 

 " New Art" and the "New Esthetic;" 

 " Evolution," which explains how 

 everything comes from nothing, and 

 goes back again to worse than nothing; 

 the sliding bog of " realism and 

 idealism " in which the phrasemonger 

 may dance around and say the same 

 false thing ten times over ; and, last 

 and least of all among these imbecili- 

 ties, the teaching that to form a garden 

 one had better know nothing of the 

 things that should grow in it, from the 

 cedar of Lebanon to the violets of the 

 mountain rocks. 



This teaching is as false as any 

 spoken or written thing can be ; there 

 is an absolute difference between the 

 living gardens and conventional de- 

 signs dealing with dead matter, be it 

 brick or stone, glass, iron, or carpets. 



There is a difference in kind, and 

 while any pupil in an architect's office 

 will get out a drawing for the kind of 

 garden we may see everywhere, the 

 garden beautiful does not arise in that 

 way. It is the difference between life 

 and death we have to think of, and 

 never to the end of time shall we get 

 the garden beautiful formed or planted 

 save by men who know something of 

 the earth and its flowers, shrubs, and 

 trees. I would much rather trust the 

 first simple person, who knew his 

 ground and loved his work, to get a 

 beautiful result than any of those arti- 

 ficers. We have proof in the gardens 

 of English people abroad that where 

 freed from the too facile plans of the 

 " office," far more beautiful gardens 

 arise, as in the Isle of Madeira, where 

 every garden differs from its neigh- 

 bour, and all are beautiful. So it is in 

 a less degree in our own island, where 

 the more we get out of the range of 

 any one conventional idea for the gar- 

 den the more beauty and freshness and 

 happy incident we see. 



W. R. 



NEW PLUMS AT SANTA ROSA. 



The following extract from a letter from Mr. Luth 



"The Plumcots and Stoneless Plums are not 

 yet quite up to my idea of perfection in all respects. 

 I have many thousand seedlings of them, and among 

 them I am finding some that more than fulfil all my 

 expectations in all respects. As soon as these can be 

 more fully tested they will be introduced. I hardly 

 dare to tell you the great improvements I have made 

 in hybrid Plums. You could not possibly be ex- 

 pected to believe it unless you could see the fruit 

 and the trees. However, I will say this much, I have 

 been working for several years in crossing the hardy 



er Burbank will be read with interest : — 



American Plum with the Japanese and Chinese and 

 others, and now have selected out some which cer- 

 tainly surpass anything in the Plum line ever seen 

 anywhere. Have just grafted in 25,000 new selected 

 seedlings, which, if they produce anything in the 

 least better, will make it possible to raise Plums 

 everywhere, and of any form, size, colour, flavour, or 

 quality desired, with or without stones^ with frost-proof 

 blooms and of keeping qualities equal to apples. 

 These are strong words, but they can all be proved 

 by examples from my Plum orchard even now." 



Calochortus. — We forgot to state that the new kinds 

 of these figured in the first issue of Flora were drawn 

 in Mr. Robert Wallace's nurseries at Colchester. We 

 hope to have the pleasure of figuring other new species of 



Calochortus during the present year, and Mr. Wallace, 

 who has more experience of their cultivation than, per- 

 haps, anyone else in England, will write an article on these 

 plants for us. 



