CHAPTER XXIX. 
REMINDERS OF MONTHLY WORK. 
“ There be some sports are painful ; but their labour 
Delight in them sets off : some kinds of baseness 
Are nobly undergone : and most poor matters 
Point to rich ends. This my mean task would be - 
As heavy to me as 'tis odious : but 
The mistress, which I serve quickens what’s dead, 
And makes my labours pleasures.” 
Tempest III., 1 
S HE “ mistress” may be Flora, or Pomona, or Ceres, but 
perhaps in this connection her proper name is Hor- 
tensia, and for the personification we may even look to 
that daughter of Hortensius, who pleaded for the Roman 
matrons, and redeemed them from a burden that was heavier 
than they could bear. But to proceed with our proper work. 
Garden operations of every kind must of necessity be influ- 
enced by the season, the weather, local usages, and the 
peculiar needs and circumstances of the cultivator. The 
legitimate purpose of a calender is to remind the cultivator 
of the operations which require to be performed as the seasons 
revolve, and, making due allowance for the diversity of 
climates within the range of which the calendar is likely to 
be used, to add such precautions as may be needful to guard 
against accident and mistake. A calendar is of necessity 
framed on the supposition that the reader knows how to per- 
form the various operations mentioned in it, and is more in 
want of direction as to the work to be done than as to the way 
of doing it. Immense advantages are to be derived from 
method in garden work ; the observance of a rule is essential 
to success, and generally it is safer to be a few days or a week 
too soon than too late in the sowing or harvesting of a 
crop, and also in other operations and details of garden 
work. 
