example of scientific business-like brevity and simplicity, and deals 
with the troubles of vegetables and fruit trees as well as flowers and 
shrubs. Elinor Hopkins. 
In Praise of Old Gardens. By Vernon Lee and Others. Portland, 
Me., Thomas B. Mosher, 191 2. 
The blessed function of Fine Art is to transport us out of our 
small personal worlds to the realization of our kinship with what is 
best in man and nature. We achieve this realization through direct 
pleasurable esthetic experience or through our power of imagination 
and the mental correlation of our life with all life. Nowhere do we 
find this inspiration more potent than in the gardens of Italy. And 
fortunately, since we always seek to understand those things that 
touch us nearly, we have two consummate interpreters of Italian 
Gardens in Sir George Sitwell and Vernon Lee. Of the former we shall 
have more to say another time. Here let us note that no gardener 
who pretends to be more than a mere horticulturist can afford to be 
without Vernon Lee's Old Italian Gardens. 
It is a short essay in five parts, full of rich imagery so finely 
expressed as to deserve a high place among the prose poems of the 
English language. Its winged words carry us spell-bound to the land 
of orange blossoms. Twice — three times it is eagerly re-read. Not 
until the after-musing do we suspect how much we have learned about 
the social, historical and literary background of the gardens. 
We know the virtues of their good qualities: we understand their 
sculpture and their fountains. We have lived in them by day and by 
night, alone and in the gorgeous company of princes and cardinals. 
Once, through the parted branches of a pomegranate, we beheld the 
gracious Gabriel flutter down into the garden of the Blessed Virgin. 
If you get this essay in the little collection called In Praise of 
Old Gardens, you will find some exquisite poetry as well and three 
other essays of garden descriptions and pilgrimages replete with in- 
spiration and delight. Fletcher Steele. 
We call attention again, in this department, to Studies of a Plant 
Lover by Mrs. Elizabeth Perry. The admirable arrangement of this 
book and the exact information it gives in simple form make it a 
valuable addition to the library of the wild flower lover whose knowl- 
edge of botany is limited. As explained in the Wild Flower Preserva- 
tion Department copies have been presented to the Wild Flower 
Preservation Society of Cincinnati and may be had from Mr. Walter 
B. Hofer, 312 Sycamore St., Cincinnati. Price $3.00 to Garden 
Club members. Postage .10. 
Another interesting and well arranged book with charming 
illustrations is Nantucket Wild Flowers by Alice O. Albertson, Curator 
of the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association, illustrated by Anne 
Hinchman (G. P. Putnam's Sons). Particularly useful is the Key 
with its accompanying illustrations. The more formal description 
of each flower is followed by a paragraph or two of general information 
about the plant, its uses or abuses, its likes and dislikes which reveal 
love as well as knowledge of growing things. 
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