106 THE FLORIST. 
out much as gardens were a quarter of a century ago. Large beds, 
round or oval principally, with flowering trees in the centre, the Lilac, 
the Acacia, the Laburnum, the Almond, and their kind; next to these, 
the glossy evergreens, the Arbutus, the Aucuba, the Box, the Berbers, 
the Juniper, Holly, and Yew; and outwardly the border for flowers. 
«And gravel walks there for meditation,” meander about these beds in 
tortuous course, conducting you to sweet little spots of coolness and 
seclusion, and giving you a continual change of objects for contempla- 
tion. I never wander in those charming grounds, but I ask myself 
this question—Are we not making a “tremendous sacrifice,” (as the 
drapers say, when they are anxious to dispose of surplus stock, or seedy 
old ‘ shopkeepers ’) to that Gigantic Idol called ‘‘ Bedding Out?” Are 
not our modern gardens, and these close to our windows, fireworks and 
kaleidescopes for three months in the year, with brown fallows for the 
remaining nine? Don’t talk to me about your “ Winter Gardens,” 
your Golden Hollies with eight leaves, your priggish little Irish Yews, 
about as big as ninepins! To the Nursery, say 1, with those tiny 
infants. And I won’t listen to any nonsense about ‘‘ grand display of 
bulbs in Spring!” The grand display costs a fortune, and comes up 
“‘ patchy,” after all. I looked out the other morning from the window 
of a grand house in these parts, where they have streets of glass and 
regiments of gardeners, upon a magnanimous but unhappy experiment 
to beautify the beds with bulbs. There were to be Maltese crosses in 
silver, and golden coronets upon cushions of purple. The idea was 
gorgeous, but the result was this—I could scarcely shave for laughing ! 
Oh, the gaps and the blanks, the 2iatus valde deflendi! Puritanical 
mice had defaced the crosses, and appropriated the Crown Jewels. 
Surely it is better for mind and body to feed regularly upon whole- 
some food, upon the meats and fruits of the earth in their season, than 
to have three months of feasting, and nine of fast. At the Grange there 
is always something, close at hand not exiled to the kitchen garden, to 
please you. 
*‘ The daughters of the year 
One after one through that still garden pass, 
Each garlanded with her peculiar flower.” 
From the cheerful parlour, with its oaken panels and large square 
stone-mullioned window, I see in winter the Laurestinus, the bright 
red berries of the Holly, the pale yellow Aconite, the white Christmas 
Rose. «There are Violets under that window, waiting for a sunny gleam, 
and the room itself is redolent now with the delicate perfume of the 
Chimonanthus fragrans. Soon they will have in abundance the Snow- 
drop (our Lady’s flower)—the Crocus, purple, and gold, and white (the 
latter irreyerently termed by children “ poached eggs,” and very like 
them)—Hepaticas, the sweet Mazereon, and all the first flowers of 
spring. You “would remove that Ribes, because it must look shabby 
in the winter!” But don’t you see that there are too many evergreens 
around it to allow the eye to rest upon it, much Jess to be offended by 
it; and it is so with all the deciduous trees. 
“And we seem,” said Miss Susan to me (two maiden sisters live at 
the Grange, Miss Susan and Miss Mary Johnstone, so sweet tempered, 
