Faults in Gardening 



burst into their few months' splendour, 

 to be finally swept away in mass by the 

 early frosts. Other gardeners have a little 

 more care for spring. There is a show of 

 Hyacinths and bulbous plants, but they 

 have manifestly been newly set, and are 

 removed at once when they have ceased 

 to flower. By newly set I mean either 

 planted at the close of autumn, or in pots 

 at the time when they happen to be in 

 bloom. 



Now the natural course is for people 

 to delight in loving and cherishing plants 

 from their earliest youth, and in tracing 

 their slow progress into age. Nothing 

 can be more pleasurable than this. At 

 the commencement of the year we see 

 the green tips of the Snowdrops and 

 Crocuses, then those of the Daffodils 

 appear, then some fine morning, unex- 

 pectedly, as we enter the garden, a Golden 

 Aconite has lifted its face from a cluster 

 of buds still down-bent, and given us 

 cheerful greeting, coming, perhaps, just 

 where we had least expected it — from 

 some bed where we had forgotten that 

 it grew. Then day after day we watch 

 the slow unfolding buds of the trees, and 

 the progress of each separate plant, as if 

 it were our own child, till at length the 



III 



