too. I had a perfectly lovely time and would have hung on his 
words except that I had such an awful lot to say myself. He had 
one Mertensia Virginica and was proud and prayerful about it 
and I had to tell him that I had sheets. And let me say right 
here that that is one of the comforting things about England. 
You think they have every garden advantage and then you find 
them gloating over one Mertensia and watering a wizened He- 
patiea trihola with their tears and estatic over the kind of New 
England Asters that I dig up by weedy Illinois roadsides. It 
isn 't all beer and skittles for them, even in a favorable season and 
although I am an anglophile I can't avoid a sense of mean 
triumph. Mr. Bowles has the most delightful mixed up garden 
you ever saw. A long, straight river called the New River and 
planted about three hundred years ago, runs through one side 
of it. It makes one bend around a row of ancient Yews not quite 
so "new" as the river. A bridge crosses it, guarded by two Yev/ 
peacocks and on the other side are the Cactus houses and millions 
of seedling Crocuses. Near the Yews is the "Lunatic Asylum" 
filled with strange and awful plants and the little garden that has 
for its center an old cross from the London Road. The Rock 
and Wild Gardens go wandering off in a most alluring manner 
and a meadow is full of lovely things. Mr. Bowles gives you a 
basket and digs up anything that you fancy for you and ' ' curses 
out" Quarentine 37 because he can only give you things small 
enough to smuggle. There is an avenue of Limes as tall as our 
great New England Elms leading to his brother's house. He 
shows you everything and talks over everything and pours out 
tea for you in Myddleton House which is the "old house," 
though he is a younger son, and you go away planning to spec- 
ialize and generalize and somehow or other get to be a gardener. 
Myddleton House is near Waltham Cross, Herts, about an hour 's 
motor ride from London. 
One M'hole short day I spent with the Hon. Vicary Gibbs at 
Aldenham, Mr. Gibbs is a keen and knowing gardener and the 
famous Beckett is an able second. Between them they grow the 
best vegetables in England, and have planted an arboretum of 
rare and interesting plants and trees. Back of the great house 
itself which is full of beautiful things, is the Dutch Garden, with 
such Yew hedges as Americans only dream of. The Tulips and 
other bulbs were not in bloom, but all sorts of charming garden 
ornaments, and the hedge, are enough to keep it delightful 
through all the year. Mr. Beckett seemed amused when I re- 
marked that a little lead figure was "cunning" and later when I 
referred to some climbing things as "vines." After this second 
lapse Mr. Gibbs, who has been to America, explained that in 
England "cunning" means only "sly" and "vines" mean only 
grapes. Everything else that climbs is a "creeper." There are 
so many wondei"s at Aldenham that someone should write a book 
15 
