348 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
execution, will serve to give a popular idea of the structure of the repro- 
ductive organs of the different groups. An artificial key to the genera, 
and a good index, complete a work that bids fair to be as popular on this 
side of the Atlantic as on the other, since the majority of species described 
in it are also natives of Britain ; and the new classification and the explan- 
atory notes will be an invaluable aid to English and North European stu- 
dents of algology. — E. M. Holmes. 
A GARDEN WILD.* 
A T first sight we were inclined to think that the peculiar collocation of 
the words in the title of this book was simply a piece of affectation 
akin to that of the ballad-writers animadverted upon by Samuel John- 
son, — 
1 Hermit hoar in solemn cell, 
Wearing out life’s evening gray/ 
he said was an illustration of the style adopted by one of the fraternity of 
whom Boswell spoke with admiration ; and, he added, he wouldn’t say 
‘ gray evening/ but 1 evening gray ’ he would think was fine. This idea, 
however, although it applied in many cases, proved to have no sound founda- 
tion, — the ‘ wild ’ in the above title turned out to be a substantive, whilst 
‘ garden ’ took on it an adjective signification ; nay, the garden was often 
dropped altogether and the author spoke of it repeatedly as ‘my wild.’ 
One has heard tell of the wilds of America, but what is a wild ? The fact 
is that what Mr. Heath describes is a wild garden of wild plants and the 
mode of its formation, — the artificial reproduction within an enclosed space 
of a small section of the open country, — and he has performed his task so 
well that one regrets that he has disfigured his book by its title. 
Like so many other people who devote themselves to the promulgation 
of particular views, our author can see little or no good in practices other 
than those he recommends. Thus all the ordinary doings of the gardener are 
condemned en masse, except so far as they are directed to the production of 
food. The topiarian art, the art of topiary as Mr. Heath calls it, which was 
so highly esteemed among the ancient Romans, and has continued partially 
in vogue down to our own day, is, perhaps, justly placed at a very low stand- 
point, — cocks and peacocks, bears, foxes, and other animals clipped out of 
yew or box, are doubtless exceedingly absurd ; but we are not prepared to 
admit that there is not a picturesque side to some of the other efforts of the 
topiarian artist. 
If topiarian ism has gone out, other horticultural practices have come into 
fashion which meet with very little favour at the hands of Mr. Heath. 
Bedding out and the formation of colour-beds and ribbon-borders he evi- 
dently regards with great contempt, and certainly, when adopted, as one often 
* My Garden Wild, and wliat I grow there. By Francis George Heath. 
Sm. 8vo. London : Chatto and Windus. 1881. 
