128 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[May 29. 
the culture of mind and the expansion of intellect. 
Hence we so often find beautiful flowers in a cottage 
window, associated with interesting books, carefully laid 
; on the mantel-shelf, side by side, with the family Bible. 
Cases have come under our own observation where 
I the taste for reading, nay, the ability to do so at all, 
I was acquired and maintained after the dormant sensi- 
| bility for beautiful flowers had been aroused into action. 
The desire to know more and everything about their 
new favourites ultimately created the taste for general 
intelligence. Thus this little book may be of much more 
importance in a social and moral point of view than at 
first sight meets the eye. Every one who helps to pro¬ 
mote a taste for flowers among his neighbours may thus 
be as good a reformer, a more successful promoter of all 
that is truly ennobling, than the more noisy philan¬ 
thropist. Fiercely using the battering ram against 
social ills is often not so successful a method for destroy¬ 
ing them as toppling them over by quietly undermining 
their foundations. Pollution and error cannot long 
exist in that mind that has obtained a zest for purity 
and truth. 
Holding these views as to the bettering influence of 
gardening and flowers, I have often been struck with a 
seeming anomally in glancing at some of the character¬ 
istics of the lads and lasses of Scotland. There there is 
no want of the ability to appreciate the romantic, the 
beautiful, and the intellectual. Scarcely a pretty glen, 
a rambling brook, a lofty hill, or a snow-capped moun¬ 
tain, but has been immortalised in song by native bards; 
while peasant boys and girls look on them with mingled 
feelings of awe and admiration. Children have a keen 
sense of the beautiful in flowers, as they eagerly hunt 
the braes and brakes for primroses, and fill their pina¬ 
fores with buttercups and daisies. Education, though 
deficient, is still, so far as the working classes are con¬ 
cerned, considerably in advance of what it is in England. 
Intellectualism is not confined, as of yore, to abstruse 
and knotty points in theology, though, even now, many 
a blue bonneted peasant from the hills would surprise 
and puzzle a learned bishop. Family feelings and 
family ties are, as a general rule, strong and enduring, 
creating thus something truly sacred about the home¬ 
liness of home. But yet, with all this appreciation of the 
beautiful, the intellectual, and the endearing, the sight 
i of which, here in the south of England, we should be so 
apt to associate with plants on the window-sill, flower- 
borders in front of the door, and a honeysuckle or sweet- 
briar bower in a snug corner of the garden; there seems 
to be something like a feeling among our Scottish friends 
that the culture of flowers is not utilitarian enough to 
engage the attention of men and women, or even of 
elder boys and girls. Great improvements, in this 
respect, have taken place within these ten and twenty 
years; so prominent, indeed, as to arrest the attention 
| of the traveller who scampers by steam vessel, rail, and 
I coach. Miserable huts still exist, but those biggings, 
without window and chimney, where the smoke issues 
' through the doorway as best it can, may be looked upon 
more as relics of the past than as presages of the future. 
The cottages wear a greater air of cheerfulness and 
comfort; the dirty pool and midden (alias dunghill) close 
to the door and window have, in many cases, given 
place to a pretty flower-pot; the walls of many of the 
houses in villages are covered with fruit trees, roses, and 
other ornamental plants, while the windows are fre¬ 
quently gemmed with geraniums, myrtles, and twining 
plants like the nasturtium and scarlet runner. The 
gardens, upon the whole, are much better cultivated, and 
| there is an addition to the kale and potatoes that used 
' to be almost solely grown, all of which has been partly 
I owing to village and township societies for the encou- 
! ragement of cottage gardening. Nestling in the suburbs 
i of the cities and towns are many neat and ornamental 
spots that would rival, if not excel, similar places and 
cottage ornees near London. But still, as respects win¬ 
dow gardening and flower-pot gardening, the working¬ 
men and tradesmen in Scotland and the north of 
England, nay, even their wealthy citizens, are very far 
behind their compeers in the middle and south of Eng¬ 
land. It is no exaggeration to say, that in a crowded 
alley of St. Giles’s, before the besom of improvement 
had swept the rookeries away, I have seen more 
plants in windows than could be witnessed in some 
of the finest streets in Edinburgh or Glasgow. 
We venture no comparison as respects the social and 
moral status of the inhabitants of these localities; but 
of this we are certain, that the St. Gilesian masculine 
huckster woman, that tended so carefully her favourite 
plants, had beneath a somewhat rough exterior, a depth 
of pure feeling, which only required to be unfolded to 
attract the most fastidious and refined; while the per¬ 
haps more strictly moral, better educated, more intel¬ 
lectual Glasgowegians, would, in addition to their other 
good qualities, be rendered still more humane, generous, 
tender-hearted, amiable, and kind, by a more intimate 
and personal acquaintance with the refining influence 
of flowers. Keen, plodding, hard selfishness is one of 
the great canker-worms in society. The loving of flowers 
solely for their loveliness, contains in it so much of the 
unselfish, that as one of the secondary agencies, we have 
no doubt it will be ultimately successful in helping for¬ 
wards a healthier, purer, and happier state of society. 
Believing this, and knowing that The Cottage Gardener 
circulates north of the Tweed; knowing, also, that there 
is a pleasure in cultivating flowers, which those who 
have never done so out of love for them can form no 
idea of, and unwilling that that pleasure should be 
confined to the comparatively few, I have ventured upon 
these hasty remarks, trusting that in my next hurried 
visit to Scotland the love of flowers may be rendered 
much more conspicuous. Many of our Scottish friends 
will be visiting the Crystal Palace, the world’s wonder, 
but whilst seeing much there and elsewhere to wonder 
at and admire, there is much in the gardens of England, 
from that of the prince to that of the cottager, and even 
at many of the railway stations, whence lessons may be 
learned to be practised in the flower plots and windows 
of their own dear homes. In these remarks I have 
purposely refrained from alluding to the professed florists 
of Scotland, who have long and carefully cultivated their 
favourites. 
By the time this reaches the press many of the greatest 
difficulties of window gardening will be over, winter 
residents will now stand out of doors with a little pro¬ 
tection. All the hardier things may be transferred 
outside the window-sill. Many things, such as Geraniums , 
Fuschias, Verbenas , Calceolarias, &c., may either be 
potted off singly, or transferred to boxes and vases, to 
decorate the balcony and flower-plot. The tenderest 
things, or such as you wish to grow, may be kept inside 
the window, and carefully attended to as respects light, 
air, and water. Many things, such as Geraniums, Cal¬ 
ceolarias, Fuchsias, &c., may now be propagated where 
only a few are wanted ; and these, when struck and half 
starved in the dog days, will make better plants for 
standing the following winter, than those propagated in 
the autumn. Where variety is an object in window 
gardening, and floral display besides, young plants only 
in small pots should be kept over the winter, the older 
ones being thrown away as soon as they have done 
flowering. Many things may be successively shifted for 
summer blooming. The early Cinerarias now fading, 
may be planted out of doors in a good border, and be 
either lifted again, or better still, have stout suckers 
taken from them in September. R. Fish. 
