*

den should be looking its very best | sustenance. Just as you may admire some time about the first week in May. but can scarcely feel tenderly towards This year, the calculation will be ful- uniformly successful people, so for a filled to a nicety. The big, dense garden that was always and everywhere bushes of the small-leaved berberis, equally gaudy or equally green you thick as a quickset hedge but not might entertain wonder, but you would trimmed like it, and neither brushed hardly cherish affection. It is one's nor topped, are in the full glory of failures in life that make one gentle their golden flower, and spread round and forgiving with oneself; and I alabout them a rich Persian carpet of most think it is the failures of others superfluous pollen. The industrious that mostly endear them to us. The bees, clad in work-day velveteen, make garden that I love is very perverse, profitable music in them all day long. very incalculable in its ways; falling The double gorse, whose fault is to at times as much below expectation as flower itself to death, is a lowlier but at others exceeding it. They who withal not an unworthy rival of the have no patience with accident, with berberis; and the broom, here yellow, waywardness, should not attempt to there white, is furnishing itself to its garden. Every gardener is, like Dogfinger-tips. In the mixed beds and berry," a fellow that hath had losses." borders the fritillaries and crown im- There are some gardeners, I am aware, perials are in their heyday, the jonquils who have nothing but losses, and who are sweeter than any honey, the grape- resign themselves with provoking equahyacinths are as stiff and unconcerned nimity to these, more especially if they as usual; and, while the old-fashioned be gardening for others, and are paid double daffodils have faded from grass for doing so. These garden stoics and thicket, the later and more elabo- should be pitilessly avoided, or disrate narcissus are now pluming them- missed. But a fair percentage of selves on their cuffs, and collars, things will "go home;" and the paand dainty petticoats. The hepaticas, thetic sum of mortality demands its whether blue or scarlet, fagged by the contribution from tree, shrub, and sun, are fast following the vanished flower. A gardener of the old-fashcrocuses; but oxslip and polyanthus, where they enjoy a little shelter, still hold bravely out.

This morning I saw a tiarella, or foam flower, making a very respectable show, though I can see I have made a mistake in planting it where it stands. It is too much exposed to the midday sun, and has hardly sufficient moisture about its roots. Next year it shall be better treated. For there is no gardening without humility, an assiduous willingness to learn, and a cheerful readiness to confess you were mistaken. Nature is continually sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder. But, by the due exercise of patience and diligence, they may work their way to the top again.

But, indeed, were it not for one's mistakes, one's failures, and one's disappointments, the love one bears one's garden would soon perish for lack of

ioned sort never expresses, nor indeed
feels, the faintest surprise when plants
fall into consumption and slowly fade
away. Do not his own daughters, and
the daughters of his neighbors, some-
times do the same? He regards casual
losses in border and shrubbery as part
of the general dispensation, which the
parson assures him is "all right."
Still this attitude of passive submission
to the inevitable may be carried too
far; and it is well, having found out
the conditions of a plant's existence, to
try to keep it alive as long as possible.
Not but that, occasionally, one may
without blame insist on a plant doing
less well in a less favorable position.
The most beautiful garden
I do not
mean the plot of ground with the most
perfectly developed flowers will have
the greatest number of losses by reason
of certain severe and merciless condi-
tions under which its beauty has to be
maintained. Il faut souffrir pour être

belle. An unbeautiful garden is a gar- | Each bulb has got to grow one particden in which man's artificial selection ular flower, in one particular way; and, reigns and rules supreme. In a beau-in so far as it deviates from the law of tiful garden man tempers the hard- the Medes and Persians appertaining and-fast lines of artificial selection by to tulips, it is a failure. Accordingly, I leaving something to natural selection, have never been able to reconcile mypermitting within bounds the struggle self to beds of closely planted tulips, for existence, and not bewailing over- with nothing to mitigate or relieve much the non-survival of the unfittest. their eighteenth-century correctness. There is one season of the year in Indeed, they are much less formal and which, over a considerable area of the more satisfactory when cut and taken garden, chance and vicissitude are ex- into the house; for then, if put into cluded, and in which there never are properly shaped glasses, they assume a any losses to record. The area is that languid air, as though their beautiful which I fancy Veronica had in her heads were too heavy for their fragile mind when she was good enough to say stems, make beautiful curves, and take this morning she never saw it looking on a drooping attitude almost pathetic. better or brighter. I will not deny that Unsevered from the hidden bulb, they there is a certain formality in Veron- stand bolt upright, and are in masses ica's taste, in some degree no doubt the more like squares of infantry than accident of disposition, but in some peaceful tenants of the parterre. But measure, I sometimes suspect, the re- carpet the bed in which you plant them sult of the scrupulous care with which with forget-me-not, and the green she orders and contrives the interior of leaves and delicate cerulean flowers of our home. It is well understood that the myosotis form an atmosphere of everything domestic or within-doors | casual carelessness that communicates she rules without partner or challenge, itself to the tulip stalks and flower cups and that everything forensic, or out-of-soaring amongst them. doors, falls under my exclusive sway. I have long since convinced Veronica, I dare say I do not always confine my- who loves to find me out in some supself to my own territory; but if I make 'posed act of extravagance out-of-doors, a suggestion beyond it, and Veronica in order, I suppose, to parry or avert does not accept it, cadit quæstio, and I what she considers my occasional tensay nothing more. I think women are dency to reprove her for excessive cxmore aggressive than men, though in a penditure within, that spring gardening quiet, insidious, and unobtrusively per- is a very inexpensive diversion. I do tinacious way. Veronica trespasses on not think, were I to show her my garmy domain much oftener than I tres- dening bills, which, however, I take pass on hers. This, however, by the good care never to do, that she could way. She is so masterly in her house-tax me with an outlay on fresh tulips hold, that a man would have to be a of more than five pounds during the presumptuous ignoramus to question her supremacy in that important realm. But the tidiness, the neatness, the shapeliness, she there maintains lead her unconsciously, I think, to look for them out-of-doors also. Accordingly, she never says such agreeable things about the garden that I love as she does when the beds are all full of spring- self. When about the third week in flowering bulbs, each in its proper place, and each a picture of method, order, and symmetry. For tulips will always wear a certain indoor, drawingroom look, do what you will with them.

last five years. The account for lilies, narcissus, Scilla Siberica, Chionodoxa Luciliæ, and out-door cyclamens, would, I allow, tell a different tale, for I lose a good many of these every year. But one's tulips are a possession forever, if one only goes the right way about preserving them. It is simplicity it

May they have to be dug up, I lay them in "by the heels," as gardeners say, in soil resembling that in which they have been flowering. There they remain till their leaves are fully with

ered, and then they are taken up and quietly, and showing no offence, but as

erto I have neglected to make proper use of the late-flowering, old-fashioned English tulips, to which fine names are now being given whereof we can well afford to be ignorant. But I will correct that fault, and must, moreover, give the parrot tulips another chance, planting them nearer to each other and in poorish soil, so as to prevent them from growing too tall and compelling one to stalk them, to the loss of more than half their beauty. They must be grown in groups; just as the English tulips, which, though the tallest of all, are strong enough, as everything En

placed in sand in spare wooden boxes. if conscious that love and open-heartedSome time in August I look them over, ness are things too good and precious take off any dead leaves or coating that to be wasted, they close their transparmay yet be clinging to them, and place ent chalices; sometimes, as they do so, them on trays in the sun, so as to make imprisoning some sedulous bee that quite sure they are dry. But you must was too intent on its honeyed labors to not keep them there too long. Then notice that the enchanted palace in all of them that are not rejected by which he was working was being gradreason of imperfection or insufficiency ually transformed into a cruel fortress of weight are stored in brown-paper without exit. One by one, when comes bags, and there stay till they are wanted the appointed hour, they let fall their again in November, to be committed still beautifully tinted petals, and once afresh to the open beds, with a small more withdraw their thoughts underhandful of sand round them, to pre-ground. I have to confess that hithserve them from the peril of excessive moisture. I often think what a comfortable time they have of it during the cold winter days and long winter nights, snugly housed underground, hybernating and fast asleep, yet dreaming all the while of the spring, of March sunshine, April rain, and May music, and slowly and unseen moving towards their liberation from subterranean slumber. Under the warm blanket of the snow they are breathing the whole time, stirred by that internal motion which, at the allotted hour, will produce what we call their awakening. You may think I am easily pleased;glish should be, to carry their heads but, day after day, in March, and indeed several times a day, I pass many happy moments in stooping over the beds, and looking with eager gaze for the first indications of their coming through the ground. Should they be later than usual in pushing their little green cones through the earth, I softly move the covering from some of them, then put it back again carefully when I have satisfied myself that they are there, and only waiting for a little more sunshine to say good-morrow to the spring. How delicately and with what infinite tact they lend themselves to every mood of that fascinating but fitful season! Let the sun but shine fully and frankly, and, when once they are well above ground, they will open their hearts to it with quick and sensitive response, as though they could neither love nor be loved by it too much. Veronica remarked to me, a day or When the heavens wax morose and two ago, that my favorite phrase is the sky turns lack-lustre, then slowly, somewhat inappropriate; and when I

without any support, produce the best effect when planted singly.

The forget-me-not gives even less trouble than the tulips, which it beautifies. I do not remember where my first stock came from, but you can always raise any quantity you may desire by sowing the seed in the open air in June, pricking off the young plants in August, and finally putting them in their allotted beds some time in November. After that, if you lay them in "by the heels," when lifted in May, they will ripen their seed there, and scatter it, and you will find in August that your stock of growing plants for the ensuing season is far in excess of your needs. Once learn how Nature gardens for herself, and you will be able to spare yourself a good deal of trouble.

asked her why, she quoted from "The
Gardener's Daughter" the lines :

Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite
Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love.

What an insidious way with it has beautiful verse, creeping without effort, and without observation on one's part, into one's hearts, and dwelling in our memory, like some fair, winsome, indispensable child. Of course I have for years known "The Gardener's Daughter," yet I was unaware, till accurate Veronica reminded me, that the phrase "The garden that I love" is thus to be found there.

mind to return to London by the next train, without troubling myself to inspect one fraud more. But, just as I was about to reach this conclusion, a genial though suspiciously rubicund outside-porter accosted me.

"It is under three miles, sir," he said, "and a very pretty walk; and, if you like, I will show you the way."

If, in order to love one's garden, it To-morrow came, and I went; taking were necessary that it should not be a journey of some sixty miles from quite beyond the living world, I fear town. It was a lovely August day; but that mine would never have so com- I suppose I was out of humor, in conpletely absorbed my affections. Tac- sequence of a succession of disappointitus, in his "De Moribus et Populis ments, and in that state of heart which Germaniæ," observes of our Saxon an-is produced by hope deferred; so that cestors, "Colunt discreti ac digressi, ut when, on reaching the end of my jourfons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit. ney, I was unable to obtain a conveyVicos locant, non in nostrum morem, ance of any sort, by reason of some connexis et cohærentibus ædificiis, suam | high ecclesiastic function which had set quisque domum spatio circumdat." The the little town agog, I half made up my 66 space " that I described myself as desiring around my "home," when I finally decided that with the busy world I had no more business, was declared by Veronica to be greatly in excess of anything I should be able to discover within the limit of my exceedingly moderate income; and for a time it looked as though she would prove an only too true prophetess. I have had but one experience of the kind, but I should think one meets with more dis- The first mile of the road was blameappointments, vexations, and disillu- less, but unremarkable, and I was just sions in searching for such a home in beginning to think my guide had as the country than in any other pursuit | little conscience as a London housein life. It is so easy to beguile people agent, when we passed through an uninto long journeys by descriptions that pretentious gate, and were in an old have no relation whatever to the thing elm avenue, undeniably picturesque, described. As a rule, the places I was and doubly welcome by reason of its induced to look at were pronounced shade, but the growth of whose trees impossible at a glance, either by reason had been stunted by untimely neglect. of their inherent ugliness and the vul- Shortly their umbrageous branches garity of their architecture, being gro- came to an end, and we were in a park, tesque or meaningless, of the badness indifferently cared for according to of the situation, of the unattractive modern ideas, but stocked with timber nature of the country in which they of magnificent growth and of every stood, or by the too close proximity of known native variety. Perhaps the

"Very well," I answered. And we started.

oaks domineered in majesty, but they | exalted our race by what he said or had worthy companions in towering what he did. At any rate, I mused and branching elms, both of the large to myself, the immediate approach to and the small leaved kinds; in dense this so-called manor-house is altogether and expansive sycamores, each of which after my heart. occupied a vast territory to itself; in I had scarcely made this consoling tall, soaring ash-trunks, that take such reflection than we came upon another pride in their boles that they never gate, passed out of the park, and found conceal them with leaves; in horse- ourselves in an ordinary meadow, chestnuts, covered with their prickly through which, however, the park-road fruit; and, here and there, in Spanish still travelled in a pleasing curve. It chestnuts, the finest I have ever seen looked tame and characterless after the in England, and still more colossal undulating sylvan spaces I had just specimens of which were congregated, traversed, and my heart began once as I now am better aware, on an emi- again to sink within me, when we nence that my companion told me I came to yet another gate that led into must learn, if I ever came to settle in an apple orchard laden with fruit of that country, to designate a toll. Here every sort and color, the trees being and there a stately walnut spread out some seventy or eighty years of age. its shining leaves, a handful of which I The only thing that invaded the unicould not resist plucking and bruising, formity of their straight and goodly so pleasant to me is their aromatic rows was an oak of giant girth and scent; and they, too, gave evidence of splendidly spreading branches, so thick a copious harvest. If there be a wood- with leaves that it was not till we were reeve of this well-timbered domain, clear of them that, though it stood not he must be, I thought to myself, a more than fifty yards ahead of me, 1 good old Tory indeed, who does not perceived the house I had in desperaallow trunk to be axed or bough to be tion come to scrutinize. Even at that lopped. Neglect is very picturesque instant, and before I had looked ou in its effects, whether the thing neg- more than its grey stone frontage, allected be a ruined castle, an unkempt most smothered in creepers up to the peasant, or a secular woodland chase. very top of its three rounded gables, I felt that, had Veronica been with me, I recognized the haven of my hopes, she would have observed that this park and the fulfilment, despite Veronica's was very ill-maintained, and that she gloomy predictions, of my most fastidwould dearly love to have the thinning ious dreams. It was small; it was seand regulating of its trees. To my less cluded; its position was, according to orderly imagination it presented a most my taste, perfect; and it had the agreeable appearance; and what, per- blended charm of simple, harmonious haps, put the finishing touch to my sat- form and venerable age. isfaction was the exceeding number of could see, there was none, save a narhawthorns, most of them in the perfect row strip of ground separated from the maturity of their growth. Whilst I orchard by a wire fence, half of which was being thrown into this sympathetic was sward, and the other half dedicated state of mind, my companion suddenly to potatoes aud gooseberry bushes. A called my attention to a goodly Jaco- short, bent, bare-headed old man was bean mansion of red brick standing in mowing the lawn, if lawn I am to call the lower ground of the park, and look- it, with a scythe, and might, with the ing as though it had been there from implement he suspended at my apall time worth thinking of. Shake-proach, have stood for Old Father Time speare must have been alive when it was built, and Cecil, and Drake, and Sir Walter Raleigh, and many another famous Englishman whose name we love to hear because he glorified and

himself.

Garden, I

I had quite made up my mind that, let the interior of the house be what it might, there would I live, and there, if allowed, would die. I was prepared,