AUGUST. 
231 
men who have as many acres to take care of as I have square yards ? 
What sort of company am I for Mr. Ingram, or Mr. Fleming, or Mr. 
Rivers ? I go back to my informant’s answer—“ The owners of those 
small gardens will have the best; ” they are good friends to horti¬ 
culture, and liberal supporters of all connected with it. However, 
I want to get a step lower still; I not only desire to speak of small 
gardens, but those gardens in the hands of persons of small means, 
whose time is much occupied, and who possibly have many little plants 
in-doors, that require nearly all the odd shillings they have to spare ; 
who, if they do not require matting and tiffany, and frames, do want 
boots and shoes, longcloth, and broadcloth : such, I know, is my position ; 
and as a very small gardener, I want to show my fellow smalls, how I 
can manage, with small expense, to have very agreeable recreation and 
be up to the mark in most flowers. I can take you into that garden— 
my friend, now; and small though it be, I can cut you a bouquet that 
some of your aristocratic neighbours might envy : and if you be a florist, 
I can ask you what you think of this or that Rose, or this Pink, or that 
Carnation ; or I can chat with you about my Auriculas or Pansies—can 
show you my Japan Lilies coming into bloom, and my new Chry¬ 
santhemums ; and pushing on their way, can ask you what you think of 
that Crystal Palace bed of Flower of the Day and Variegated Alyssum 
—or whether you like that little bed of Phlox Radetzsky; and my 
being able to do this, will—whhout too much flattery, I hope—be 
sufficient for me to be your chronicler. And let me add that for well nigh 
twenty years, I have been a florist, I can remember the days when 
Garth and Foster first astonished the world with Joan of Arc and Sylph 
Geraniums, and well remember oi*e day seeing at Catleugh’s a lady of 
rank ordering two plants of the latter for ten guineas. Much of my 
experience, too, has been that of gardening under difficulties ; so much 
so, that my friends often have said, “Well you will have a garden an}^- 
where.” Once or twice I have been more favourably situated ; but I 
question very much whether my enjoyment of my garden was as great 
then as when I was more straitened, and now that I am removed from 
all exhibitions, I think my interest in flowers is of a more legitimate 
character than when I used to be carrying off prizes at a metropolitan 
show. So here again experience will, perhaps, qualify me for being the 
chronicler of small gardeners. 
As one has now principally to admire, and with' the exception of 
layering Carnations and Picotees, there is but little now to occupy me, 
I will give a description of what I have to work on and with : and then, 
as each month requires its record, will tell, not what ought to be done, but 
what I am doing. I dare say much will be quite wrong in the judgment of 
many. I do not want to teach, only to chronicle, and hope, by presuming 
to do this, I may bring down on me some great gun to teach me and 
my brothers in the art. 
As a clergyman with a parish of 3,000 pebple, it will be seen tnat I 
have not much time to devote to a garden, and that time has to be 
measured out in very exact dozes. I look upon my garden as my 
recreation, and therefore give to it one hour every morning, and the 
