February 15, ISSl. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
123 
not now wearing the wedding garment of fashion are scarcely 
permissible among their more finely dressed relations. I think 
while we are so enamoured of the new love there is some danger 
of the old love getting slighted, although by a little self-deception 
we may call them old-fashioned, because, forsooth, it is the new 
fashion to do so. But how few of these are those links with the 
past—those which speak to us in their eloquent language of auld 
lang syne. We may not be endowed with the ultra poetic tem¬ 
perament of sunnier climes, where 
“ In Eastern lands they talk in flowers. 
And they tell in a garland their loves and cares, 
Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers 
On its leaves a mystic language bears.” 
But the little poetry that does come into our lives, to soften 
and fine down the rougher elements, we can ill afford to lose. For 
posterity we are indeed sowing a goodly crop, for them to reap the 
benefits, or rather the refining influences of sentiment, supposing, 
of course, that progress has not eliminated these considerations 
from the mind of the nation, a remote contingency it is not pleasant 
to imagine. Admiration for these modern additions to our hardy 
borders is, of course, unqualified ; many rival the Orchids in their 
marvellous beauty; comparison with the old, old-fashioned 
favourites would be invidious, and they do have and deserve a 
large share in our hearts and borders, a little corner of which we 
may, I think, still keep for those for which I plead. 
Consistent with the circumstances under which I may be placed 
I indulge in this hobby. Some of the flowers are so modest that 
it will be as well not to mention their names, and I own to 
the weakness of feeling constrained to offer to my gardening 
friends an apology if they do happen to notice them—an apology, 
mayhap, received in ominous silence, or eliciting the remark “ old- 
fashioned ” in a tone not quite complimentary, a remark capable 
of self-application. Alas ! I fear it is the case, and I plead for 
this bit of poetry in my life. A busy life is possible to be some¬ 
what of a lonely one ; one does not meet too many friends in its 
walks, and I cannot turn my back on these old ones, though they 
be not quite d la ynode. They speak to me of an old Kentish 
cottage garden, with its hedge of Lavender, the bush of Rosemary 
by the well, its promiscuous growth of Pinks, Larkspurs, Scarlet 
Lightning, Golden Rod, Hollyhocks, Cabbage Roses, Moss Roses, 
London Pride, Honesty, and many, many others, which not only 
filled the borders, but had a habit of stepping over the edgings 
into the walks, to be respected even there. And that old cottage 
covered with Sweetwater Vines, bearing profusely and ripening too, 
except in one particular spot, the radius of reach for two boys 
from the old lead casement of a bedroom window. Was any fruit 
—stolen fruit—so sweet as that, or any garden so comprehensive? 
I thought not then, though on seeing that garden after years had 
rolled away I was surprised to see how small it was. On a later 
trip it was gone, swallowed up by the modern Babylon with its 
surroundings of trees and fields. 
Those old-fashioned people, what pleasures they derived from 
their gardens ! Have these pleasures increased with us ? Probably 
the cares have, and how generous they were in giving ! It was an 
unwritten law that friends on a visit from town should carry back 
a bit of the country with them in the shape of a real honest old- 
fashioned nosegay, fragrant, long-stalked, surrounded with green. 
These people believed in herbs too, in the virtues of strong 
infusions of Ground Ivy, Agrimony, Mint, Horehound, and other 
bitter potions, good no doubt, or at least should have been were 
those virtues in relative proportion to their nauseousness ; but, as I 
say, they believed in them, and faith completed what the other 
failed to effect. And what was good for them was a remedy for 
all the ills that their cattle were heirs to, for the then locally 
celebrated Dr. C-had no other ingredients in his pharmacopoeia, 
a venerable man with flowing white locks, his title purely one of 
courtesy, no college had given his degrees ; in fact, “ book 
laming” was rather held by him in contempt, and we boys to some 
extent shared in the feeling. Two tin bottles strapped Gilpin 
fashion on his back held the potent drenches, to which the diseases 
(there could have been but two then) were supposed to yield, and 
if they did not, and the patient succumbed. Kismet! it was fate. 
Faith was unshaken, and the acount was paid, it was only us boys 
who made disrespectful allusions on seeing the bill. “To kuring 
cow that dyed, 5s.” (this is a fact). The aromatic pungency of these 
herbs are a powerful air to memory—too powerful in this case 
some may thmk—they bring back forcibly the early pages of our 
life, and the old fashioned flowers are the pictures to those pages. 
Do not let us tear them out, though they be fashion plates out of 
date ; let us keep them till the volume closes with “ Finis.” Others 
to come may do what seems to them befitting. 
Those old-fashioned names, too, let us keep them, for they will 
not smell as sweet by any others. An old-fashioned gardener once 
gave me roots of the most charming pink and blue flowers I had ever 
seen, the world to me then was all but a hidden book, I am near 
saying, would that it had kept so. Well, these flowers were 
“ Pattakees ”—do not turn up the botanical dictionary, dictionaries 
have not everything in them. “Pattakees” he told me, and 
Pattakees they were for years, till I found out the slight error in 
nomenclature, and the “ book-larned ” ones wrote it Hepatica. 
Good old Kingston ! neither sons nor daughters did you leave to 
prevent your name being mentioned. 
In no way has Fashion been more obtrusive than in bouquets, 
in which of later days so much has been sacrificed to size, and that 
means weight. What a burden for a lady to carry and hold for 
hours some of them are, but the imperious dame ordains it, and it 
must be, till she has run the cycle of shower and other bouquets, 
and completed it with, say, a thunder and lightning variety, and 
reverts to the simple posies of old times, which will be grateful to 
all, and which if smaller need not be less choice with the wealth of 
flowers now to hand. 
The enterprise of modern times has brought the flora of the 
world to our islands, not alone the heat-loving plants, but many 
from the altitudes of mountain chains, suiting our own climate, 
and though we can give them that, we cannot reproduce the 
surroundings of their native habitats, and consequently lose their 
subtle charm. For instance, Mr. Burbidge has the Edelweiss happy 
on a wall in the Trinity College gardens, but we cannot say it is a 
home. They are there truly ; but the flower spirit that hovered o’er 
“ the meek dwellers mid yon terror-stricken cliffs,” comes not in 
the college gardens. With the old favourites, the old fashioned 
flowers of the long ago—with their simplicity, their fragrance and 
incomparable associations, these are the old friends that brightened 
the early steps on life’s rugged road. And though we have met 
with gayer and more showy dressed company on the journey, let us 
still keep them with their hallowed memories, until “ we touch 
time’s farthest brink.”—E. K , Dublin. 
HALF HOURS WITH GREAT AUTHORS. 
The Twin Aspects of Culture. 
{^Concluded from page 45.') 
In his trenchant prose, wherein fiery sentences are interspersed 
with many a mellifluous stream of graceful language and many a 
burning sarcasm, Carlyle drives home alike to hesitating and 
slothful minds the warm impulse of higher and more strenuous 
endeavour. His was the lofty and noble creed of improvement, 
and however severe may be the condemnation which has been 
passed on him it is certain that he influenced his generation largely 
for good. But inasmuch as the practical trend of his teaching lies 
rather in the direction of literature than gardening it may not be 
unwise to follow him directly no longer. We may strengthen 
ourselves with the inspiration, the essence of advancement and 
self-improvement, which are to be drawn from nearly all he wrote, 
and with this beacon-light to encourage us, try to reach the goal 
by our own paths. 
The Best Books. 
A few years ago a vigorously conducted daily journal inaugu¬ 
rated a kind of plebiscite with a view to testing opinion as to the 
best hundred books, and popularised the scheme by the ingenims 
plan of getting a number of the leading politicians and writers to 
criticise the list. The result was full of interest, but equally full 
of confusion, for the various opinions were so conflicting that it 
was almost impossible to focus the light of the many minds which 
had been at work on any particular book or set of books. Probably 
if a gardening paper were to invite its readers to indicate what 
subjects they thought it most desirable for we of the younger 
generation to study, and what books to read, there would be 
divergencies of opinion just as great as those which prevailed when 
Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Payn, 
toaffther with scores of other celebrities, gave their views on the best 
100 books which the community at large could read. 
But if the matter is complex all the more reason for making 
the endeavour, even though a weak and imperfect one, to remove 
the kinks from the skein. In discussing this subject with a very 
intelligent young head gardener a few months ago, he gave utter¬ 
ance to what must be the sentiment of many. “ What,” he asked, 
“ am 1 to begin on ? ” Yes ; that is the point. There are many 
things which anyone with a desire for improving his general know¬ 
ledge would like to know, and the acquirement of which he would 
not object to work hard for ; but he is puzzled and embarrassed, 
and wastes much precious time because there are so many ends to 
strive for, and no clear and definite course of getting at thein. Let 
us place a few special subjects in line before us, not in any 
particular order, but merely as they occur to mind—shorthand. 
