332 
THE FLORIST. 
driven down, obtained leave from one of my parishioners to cut some 
Gorse on his mountain, and wove this into the stakes so as to make a 
tolerably good protection, though of course a very unsightly one. 
Within this little enclosure I managed to grow some first-rate Ranun¬ 
culuses, Carnations, and other flowers, and not only succeeded myself, 
but stirred up others to attempt their growth. Sir Robert Peel had 
not then given us the boon of cheap glass, and I could not attempt a glass 
greenhouse; but I did manage to construci one of glazed calico, put it 
up in the fosse that surrounded my cottage, and in it managed to grow 
some Geraniums and other greenhouse flowers. So that should any of 
you, who imagine that your position is too exposed to the sea winds, 
say, “ I cannot grow anything there,” I would point to this chapter of 
my gardening experience, and say that I never had finer flowers than 
I had then. My chief trouble was that the hedge was so short that 
persons could get over it; but, as far as I knew, the only depredator 
was a young lady, who deliberately picked off some of my best Car¬ 
nations, I believe merely out of bravado and mischief. After remaining 
there for some years, an increasing family made it necessary for me to 
remove to a larger house; and there, in a lovely valley, with a fine 
garden, I was enabled to grow what 1 wished, without fear of winds 
and young ladies. I then came over to England, and you may imagine 
the change from a spot of surpassing loveliness to a small house in that 
most cockney of all cockney watering places, Ramsgate—in the depth of 
the winter, too. When I got fixed in my abode I found I had a square 
plot at the back of my house, about 20 feet by 14, with a grass plot in 
the centre and a border round, closed in by houses on either side. 
Very unpromising again, I thought—hopeless to attempt flowers here; 
the spring, however, brought more cheering thoughts on the subject, 
and I really began to think I might grow something, so I set to work, 
not to plant Currant bushes or grow Scarlet Runners, as I found some 
of my neighbours had done, but to grow a few flowers ; and in the 
course of the summer friends used to ask me to let them go round into 
my garden! to see my Verbenas, &c. A greenhouse I could not 
attempt, but there were one or two pot plants, for which I had a great 
fondness, which I thought might do well; amongst them were the 
Japan Lilies. I procured one from Canterbury, and, by-the-bye, had 
rather an amusing adventure with it; for, as I was coming home, late 
at night and muffled up, a Roman Catholic priest mistook me for a 
gardener, and entered into a long conversation with me on matters 
which, had he known me to be an heretical minister, he would not, 
perhaps, have been so communicative upon. When I left Ramsgate, in 
the spring, amongst the goods and chattels which I brought over with me 
here were these Lilies. As they were being carried up the road they 
attracted the attention of a gentleman living in Prospect Place, who 
had just begun to take an interest in flowers, and were the means, I 
believe, of first giving him an inkling of what good flowers are; so that 
my little back-yard at Ramsgate not only was the means of much 
pleasure to myself, but has incidentally been the means of giving it to 
others. To those amongst you, then, who may have just such a con¬ 
fined space as I had there, these facts, showing that such a space can 
