378 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



they evidently sought it naturally, although I confess I do not see how it 

 was attained, hut here it is : " And within the courtyard hard by the 

 door is a great garden, of four ploughgates, and a hedge runs round on 

 either side. And without the courtyard hard by the door is a great 

 garden, and there grow tall trees, blossoming pear trees and pomegranates, 

 and apple trees with bright fruit, and sweet figs, and olives in their bloom. 

 The fruit of these trees never perisheth, neither faileth winter or summer, 

 enduring through all the year. Evermore the west wind blowing brings 

 some fruits to birth and ripens others. Pear upon pear waxes old, and 

 apple on apple, yea, and cluster ripens upon cluster of the grape, and fig 

 upon fig. There too hath he a fruitful vineyard planted, whereof the one 

 part is being dried by the heat, a sunny spot on level ground, while other 

 grapes men are gathering, and yet others they are treading in the wine 

 press. In the foremost row are unripe grapes that cast the blossom, and 

 others there be that are growing black to vintaging. There too, skirting 

 the furthest line, are all manner of garden beds, planted trimly, that are 

 perpetually fresh, and therein are two fountains of water. These were 

 the splendid gifts of the gods in the palace of Alcinous." 



Lord Bacon in his celebrated garden essay makes a poor bid for 

 perpetual freshness even in " The Royal Ordering of Gardens." His 

 directions for outdoor gardening during at least three of the winter 

 months read all right on paper, but when it comes to actuality, well, the 

 Riviera or the Canary Isles are found to be preferable to the Ver Perpetuum 

 of a prince's garden of thirty acres. I agree, however, with his lordship in 

 his ideal : " I do hold in the Royal Ordering of Gardens, there ought to 

 be gardens for all the months in the Year, in which severally, things of 

 Beauty may be then in season." We English make a poor show at 

 perpetual freshness all round, nevertheless the ideal is right. 



I say again what I have previously said in other words, that you must 

 have within the garden a marked improvement upon the wild fruits and 

 flowers of the field, for "a garden is man's report of earth at her best," 

 where the free, artistic prodigality and disarray of the wayside is curbed, 

 but it is not true gardening that concentrates solely upon the monstrous 

 and the rare. From compulsion we must tie up the giant sunflower and 

 " hollyhocks tall " in the rear of the border, and everything that would 

 break and hang untidily, but let us not as the Greek civilization did, 

 adoring what was consummate, despise the husbandry of shepherd and 

 gardener ; let us learn to esteem the secondary or the seeming trivialities ; 

 let there be an air of generous freedom and intricacy even in the masses 

 which constitute the bulk ; clusters of sweet relationships rather than 

 a forced individualism, and the cheerful fellowship as of a family in that 

 domain apart. 



Where order in variety we see, 



Where all things differ, yet they all agree. 



The happy interchange of one flower with another, not always pruned, 

 tied up, and drilled erect like soldiers, but rather the branches of one tree 

 let to playfully peer into and mingle with the untraceable light and 

 shadow-play of its neighbours. Agreeing with the extreme selectiveness 

 and the perfecting of the rare ideal (which I may say is a synonym of 



