MARCH. 81 
charge exercise more judgment in planting than has hitherto guided 
them ; anything more discreditable to all concerned in the matter than 
the wretched exhibition at the Marble Arch, we never saw. What 
would any private gentleman, after spending hundreds of pounds in 
planting, think of his gardener, who, when all his plants were dead or 
dying, told him, that he had taken them up again because the ground 
had not been properly prepared for them in the first place. We hope 
the new Commissioner will look into this most unsatisfactory affair. 
The Horticultural Society is now fairly under sail, and the large 
addition of new Fellows would seem to point to a permanent 
prosperity. We rejoice at this significant fact, and can only hope 
that, profiting by the experience of the past mismanagement, the 
resuscitated Society may now really direct its energies to the: develop- 
ment of experimental and practical horticulture ; the ornamental part 
it appears fully bent upon carrying out, by the announcement of what 
it is about doing at Kensington-gore. 
els 
THE SIX OF SPADES. 
CHAPTER III. 
SITING next to Mr. Chiswick, whose dark-brown locks contrast with 
Mr. Oldacre’s silvery hair, like Perilla nankinensis with Cineraria mari- 
tima, my gardener puffs his pipe. Silent and thoughtful, as one who is 
wise at whist, he knows every trick in spades, and holds winning cards 
in his hand. We have-scored the honours, have we not, old friend, in 
many a floricultural rubber, and proved on many a board of green cloth 
our capabilities (dare I say our cup-abilities?) at a bumper. Trained 
in no ducal gardens, taught in no colleges of science, you have learned 
your lesson, slowly but surely, from the greatest teacher of your art, 
Experience, bringing to her school that love which she delights to 
instruct, and which alone can master her laborious tasks. There was 
never, assuredly, a good gardener yet, who was not first of all a gardener 
at heart. : 
My earliest associations with horticulture, recalled as I look upon that 
old familiar face, were not of a jubilant kind. I have to confess that, 
at the premature age of five, I gave lamentable proof of my descent 
from Eve by strong yearnings after forbidden fruit; and that at six, 1 was 
an experienced felon—no, not a felon, for his crimes meet with capital 
punishment, and mine were avenged elsewhere—but, at all events, an 
artful thief. Neither so expert nor so shrewd, however, as to escape dis- 
covery and a just disgrace. My chief strategy, when, a tiny brigand, 
I prowled the earth for prey, was to enter the kitchen- gardens as 
unconcernedly as possible, and then to call loudly, ‘‘ Dardner! Dardner!” 
If he responded, I would favour him with one of those spirited com- 
ments upon the weather in which we English are so happy, even from 
childhood, or would make inquiries of a most affectionate (and affected) 
order as to the condition of his bodily health; and it was, “‘ How do, 
Dardner? Fine day, Dardner! Dud morning, Dardner dear!” But 
VOL, XIV., NO. CXLVIL. G 
