2 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. c January 4, ms. 
ennui, and ennui is the very essence of melancholy.” 
Man’s mind loves variety. How at our flower 
shows this year people crowded around to see and 
admire the many single Dahlias shown ! I think 
there is room for the introduction of more variety 
in gardens. This is a hint which landscape gardeners 
may take. "With our climate, taste and skill count 
for everything. It is not with us in England as with 
the people of California, of which country this year 
wrote Miss Gordon Cummiug, “Gardening here must 
he a delight when I look at the almost spontaneous 
growth of everything; for here (California) as in 
Australia all manner of plants grow side by side, and 
make no difficulty about acclimatisation. The Loquat, 
the Grape Vine, and the Lemon grow beside English 
Ivy and Oak, while the ground is carpeted with Violets 
and Lilies.” Then she makes one’s mouth water with 
such descriptions as these :—“ Imagine a Fuchsia 
which in less than three years completely covers a 
house 70 feet in length and three storeys high, climbing 
right to the roof, and loaded with blossom ; or a 
Geranium bush G feet high and 18 feet round, with 
a thousand heads of blossom at the same moment.” 
Then she tells us of “a Bose bush which produces 
15,000 to 20,000 Eoses yearly. There is a famous 
Eose tree at Santa Bosa—suitable name—which is 
27 feet high and 22 in diameter ; its stem measures 
24 inches at the base, and rises 12 feet before throwing 
out a single branch. It is called La Marque,” (a name 
well known to Bose-growers and lovers), “ and is a 
pure white Eose,” the centre not noticed perhaps by 
Miss C., “and has sometimes 5000 blossoms in full 
beauty at the same moment, and”—but I will not 
transcribe more pictures for fear of driving “D Deal,” 
Mr. Hinton, and the rest of the Eose fraternity stark- 
staring mad with jealousy. 
But if we cannot have such flowers, still our little 
gardens are, what John Evelyn called them long ago, 
“places of sweet retirement,” and never were such 
places of sweet retirement more, or so much, needed 
as now. With nerves worn by hard city work, 
when even the short railway journey from his villa 
to town each day wearies, and the whistle and scream 
of the engine almost madden, how precious to the man 
of business—he who is “ something in the city,” that 
something taking in all varieties of people from mer¬ 
chant to clerk—but how welcome to each and all are at 
evening, and on Sunday specially, such “ places of 
sweet retirement ” as their gardens, small or large, 
the former often quite as much prized as the latter. 
Andrew Marvel more than two hundred years ago 
wrote of his garden, I think at a time when he was 
much in London— 
“ Society is all but rude 
To this delicious solitude.” 
Nor, though I am myself no farmer, are these thoughts 
and feelings foreign to him who enters with delight 
into the pleasures of his “ Home Farm.” Well here is 
a hint for our ideal farmer if he grows Clover seed. The 
late Mr. Darwin it is, I think, who quaintly remarked 
that the fertility of the Clover in any district depends 
upon the number of cats kept in the neighbourhood; 
for the Clover is fertilised by the bees, and the bees 
are greatly thinned by the harvest mice, and the 
harvest mice in turn are much devoured by cats. The 
more cats, therefore, the fewer harvest mice and the better 
Clover crop. Since I read that I pet my cat still more, 
and consider myself through her a benefit to the farm¬ 
ing interest. No house nor stable should be without 
its cat either for pleasure, or, as it seems, for national 
benefit if Clover fields be near. The thought of cats 
makes me think, by an odd twist of unreasoning, of 
their opposites—viz., birds. Pigeon literature rarely 
has any addition from a writer who is outside the world 
of fanciers, but one such addition I must note, a charm¬ 
ing tale, causing laughter and tears, appeared in 
“Aunt Judy’s Magazine” for November, 1881, entitled 
“ Daddie Darwin’s Dovecote,” by Mrs. Ewing, a tale, 
as you may judge from the title, in which pigeons, and 
fancy pigeons too, figure charmingly. I should like to 
see it printed as an introduction to any future large 
work on pigeons. In regard to the more useful, though 
scarcely fancy pigeons, the homing birds, I notice now 
even in Wiltshire towns they are largely kept, and 
Flying Clubs have taken root, these imported from the 
north. Homing pigeons were at a time undervalued, 
or only used by fanciers when Dragoons were flown. 
Then when news became more eagerly sought for the 
faster-flying Antwerps came iuto fashion. But then 
came the telegraph, and it was believed the days of 
pigeon use were over; but it is not so. To say nothing of 
times of war, when telegraphs are destroyed, or, worse 
still, “ tapped,” it has been discovered, so I learn from 
a recent Indian paper, that the irregularity and delays 
of the telegraph in some parts of the world are so great, 
from various circumstances, that the pigeon post has 
been reconstituted, and it was found to be quicker and 
more certain than the telegraph. So Nature beats Art 
even in these most scientific days. 
To speak of one other bird, which was, happily, com¬ 
mon some years since, the goldfinch—birds which in 
their singular loveliness of colour, form, and spright¬ 
liness of movement attracted the eye of the least bird- 
loving. These, the handsomest of all English singing 
birds, have become increasingly scarce. I have only 
seen one pair wild during the last ten years, and a 
recent writer notices that this scarcity is owing to the 
better cultivation of land and the extirpation, or nearly 
so, of Thistles. But I would ask, Has the Bird Preser¬ 
vation Act been properly carried out ? I beg my 
readers, each and all, to see to this in their neighbour¬ 
hoods. Have the men with call birds and limed twigs 
been laid hold of by the police as they ought to be ? 
If not, we shall utterly lose one of the best of living 
ornaments to our gardens and country lanes, and one 
of the sweetest songsters. 
But I must cease or shorten my gossip on paper. 
We begin another year, and “ our Journal ” sails on 
smooth seas, and is welcomed in countless homes of 
English-speaking people at home and abroad. Many 
periodicals are read and done with ; I do not find this 
to be the case with ours. I read and refer to its bound 
volumes constantly for various reasons. Sometimes 
for special information ; and sometimes, on a dull day, 
I turn to read over again such a series of papers as 
“ The Market Gardens of London,” or the “ Early 
Writers on English Gardening.” 
I have said that the past, the present, and the future 
have all their power over us. I would say, Act well in 
the present, and when it becomes a past you will not 
be pricked by conscience, but comforted by a pleasant 
and not painful retrospect. Then, as to the future, I 
hope, as I have said, there is something bright ahead 
for us all. Clouds move away sooner than we expect. 
