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BY

MRS. C. W. EARLE

WITH AN APPENDIX

BY

LADY CONSTANCE LYTTON

TENTH EDITION.

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET

1898

‘

TO MY SISTER

| THE COUNTESS OF LYTTON

PREFACE

es

Tursz ‘Notes’ would never have been extracted
from me without the encouragement I have received
from all my dear nieces, real and adopted, and the
very practical assistance of one of them. Now that
the book is written, I can only hope that it will not

prove too great a disappointment to them all.

CONTENTS

JANUARY

Introductory—Indispensable books—An old Hertfordshire gar-
den—Reminiscences—My present garden plants in a
London room—Japanese floral arrangement—Cooki
vegetables and fruit—Making coffee—Early blossoms—
Winter gardening—Frost pictures on window-panes

FEBRUARY

Forced bulbs—The exhibitions of the Royal Horticultural
Society—Early spring salads and vegetables—Rhubarb
tarts—Orange marmalade—Receipts by a French chef .

MARCH

Slow-growing hardy shrubs—The Swanley Horticultural College
—Gardening as an employment for women—Aucubas berries
—Planting Asparagus—Brussels Sprouts—Sowing annuals
—A list of flowering creepers—‘ The Poet in the City ’—
Old illustrated gardening books

APRIL

Whims of the weather—Spring flowers—The herbaceous nur-
sery—Love for the garden—A light sprayer—Homely
French receipt—French gardening—The late frosts

PAGE

23

38

70

x POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

MAY

Vegetable growing—Autumn annuals—Spring seeds—Descrip-
tion of my own garden—Weeding—Houses facing west—
Flowering shrubs—May flowers—Sundials—Roses and
Creepers—History of the Tulip—Salads—Plant shelters—
Sweet Verbena—Blue Anemones—Packing cut flowers—
A few simple receipts—Plants in pots

JUNE

Hands and fingers after weeding—Shrub-pruning—Boxes for
birds—Robins in greenhouse—‘ Burning Bush ’—Two Poly-
gonums—Strawberries—Geraniums and cuttings—Cactuses
—Freezia bulbs—Gloriosa superba—Luncheon dishes—
Cucumbers

JULY

The Welsh Poppy—Astrantias—Old Green Peas—Red Currants
—The Madonna Lily, L’épée de la Vierge—The value of the
reserve garden—An English summer’s day—Light soils and
dry summers—Other people’s gardens—Notebooks—Sunny
lawns—Dutch gardens—Fountains and water-tanks—
Lobelia cardinalis—Watering out of doors—Two hardy
shrubs .

AUGUST

Gilbert White—The decline of vegetable culture in the Middle
Ages—Preserving French Beans and Scarlet Runners—
Scotch gardens—Z'ropeolum specioswm—Crimson-berried
Elder—The coast of Sutherlandshire—The abuse of coarse
Creepers

SEPTEMBER

Weeds we alternately love and hate—Amaryllis belladonna—
First touch of frost—Colour-blindness—Special annuals—
Autumn seed-sowing—Re-planting Carnation layers—
Planting drives and approaches to small houses—‘ Wild
gardening ’—Double Violets—Salvias—Baby chickens—
Pigeons .

PAGE

86

. 116

- 128

. 145

. 160

CONTENTS
OCTOBER

Autumn mornings and robins—Italian Daturas—The useful
‘Myticuttah ’—Nerimes— Three Cape greenhouse plants—
Sweet Chestnuts—Other people’s gardening difticulties—
Making new beds—The great Apple time—French White
Haricot—The stewing of chickens and game—Re-planting
Violas and Saxifrages—‘ St. Luke’s summer ’—Plants for
August, September, and October—London gardens

NOVEMBER

Letting in the autumn sun—Jerusalem Artichokes—Hardy
Bamboos — Polygonum cuspidatum — Autumn flowers —
Small Beech-trees—Last day in the country—Some garden-
ing books of this century

DECHMBER

Orchid-growing on a small scale—Miss Jekyll’s articles in the
‘Guardian ’—Winter vegetables—Laver as a vegetable—
Advice to housekeepers—Cooking sun-dried fruit

SONS

Boys and girls—The health question—Harly independence—
Public schools—Influence of parents—The management of
money—Family life and its difficulties—Sir Henry Taylor—
‘Mothers and Sons ’—The feeding of children—The abuse
of athletics—Success in life—Spartan upbringing—Youth
and age 5 , -

FURNISHING

Books on furnishing—Smoking—Morris’s ‘ Lectures on Art ’—
London houses—New and second-hand furniture—Curtains
versus blinds—White paint—Bookcases—Bed-rooms—Bath-
rooms—Bedding— Useful tables—Rain-water

DAY IN LONDON

Advantages of suburbs— London life—Picture exhibitions

ea

1

PAGE

178

249

257

276

(Jo)

xii POT-POURRI FROM. A SURREY GARDEN

HEALTH

Nurses—‘ Janet’s Repentance ’—Private hospitals—Sick-nursing
—Convalescence—Medical books

AMATEUR ARTISTS

Amateurs—Want of occupation—Work amongst the poor—
Music and drawing—Ruskin’s teaching—Technical skill—
Natural and acquired talent—Leaving home—Water-colours
versus Oils. i: : 3 : : -

DAUGHTERS

School-girls—Ignorance of parents—The confidence of children
must be gained—The way to do it—Drawbacks of nurseries
and school-rooms — Over-education—Show-training—Deli-
cate girls—A woman’s vocation—Superficial teaching—
Children’s tempers—Modern girls—Herbert Spencer and
education—J. P. Richter—Liberty and independence—
Serious studies—What young girls should read—Parents
and children—Friendships — Girls’ allowances —Dress—
Professions—Strong feelings—Management of house and
family—Early rising—Life in society .

APPENDIX

Japanese art of arranging cut flowers

INDEX : ms ; z

PAGE

296

307

317

POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

JANUARY

Introductory—Indispensable books—An old Hertfordshire garden—
Reminiscences—-My present garden plants in a London room—
Japanese floral arrangement—Cooking vegetables and fruit—
Making coffee—Harly blossoms—Winter gardening—Frost pic-
tures on window-panes.

January 2nd—I am not going to write a gardening
book, or a cookery book, or a book on furnishing or
education. Plenty of these have been published lately.
I merely wish to talk to you on paper about several sub-
jects as they occur to me throughout one year; and if
such desultory notes prove to be of any use to you or
others, so much the better. One can only teach from
personal knowledge ; yet how exceedingly limited that is!

The fact that I shall mention gardening every month
will give this subject preponderance throughout the book.
At the same time I shall in no way attempt to super-
sede books on gardening, that are much fuller and more
complete than anything I could write. For those who
care to learn gardening in the way I have learnt, I may
mention, before I go further, three books which seem to
me absolutely essential—‘ The English Flower Garden,’
by W. Robinson ; ‘ The Vegetable Garden,’ translated from
the French, edited by W. Robinson; and Johnson’s

B

2 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

‘Gardener’s Dictionary, by C. H. Wright and D.
Dewar. This last supplies any deficiencies in the other
two, and it teaches the cultivation of plants under glass.

The cookery book to which I shall refer is ‘ Dainty
Dishes,’ by Lady Harriet Sinclair. It is an old one, and
has often been reprinted. I have knownit all my married
life, and have found no other book on cooking so useful,
so clear, or in such good taste. It is the only English
cookery book I know that has been translated into
German.

I have given you the names of these books, as it is
through them I have learnt most of what I know, both in
gardening and cooking. It is, however, undeniable that,
as the old proverb says, you may drag a horse to the
water, but you can’t make him drink ; and unless, when I
name plants or vegetables for the table, you look them up
in the books, you will derive very little benefit from these
notes.

Just now it seems as if everybody wrote books
which nobody reads. This is probably what I am doing
myself; but, so far as gardening is concerned, at any rate,
IT have read and studied very hard, as I began to learn
quite late in life. I never buy a plant, or have one given
me, without looking it up in the books and providing
it with the best treatment in my power. If a plant
fails, I always blame myself, and feel sure I have culti-
vated it wrongly. No day goes by without my study-
ing some of my books or reading one or more of the very
excellent gardening newspapers that are published weekly.
This is how I also learnt cooking when I was younger,
always going to the book when a dish was wrong.
In this way one becomes independent of cooks and
gardeners, because, if they leave, one can always teach
another. Nothing is more unjust than the way a great
many people find fault with their gardeners, and, like the

JANUARY 3

Egyptians of old, demand bricks without straw. How
can aman who has had little education and no experience
be expected to know about plants that come from all
parts of the world, and require individual treatment and
understanding to make them grow here at all? Or how
can a cook be expected to dress vegetables when she has
never been taught how to do it? In England her one
instruction has usually been to throw a large handful of
coarse soda into the water, with a view to making it soft
and keeping the colour of the vegetables, whereas, in fact,
she by so doing destroys their health-giving properties ;
and every housekeeper should see that it is not done.
Her next idea is to hand over the cooking of the
vegetables to a raw girl of a kitchen-maid, if she has one.

I am most anxious that anybody who does not care
for old Herbals should pass over those catalogued in
March; but, on the other hand, that those who are
interested in gardening should look through the Novem-
ber list of books, as they will find many modern ones
mentioned there which may be useful to them for
practical purposes.

My hope and wish is that my reader will take me
by the hand; for I do not reap, andI do not sow. Iam
merely, like so many other women of the past and present,
a patient gleaner in the fields of knowledge, and absolutely
dependent on human sympathy in order to do anything
at all. I cannot explain too much that the object of my
book is to try to make everyone think for him or herself,
and at the same time to profit by the instruction which in
these days is so easy to get, and isall around us. Women
are still behind the other sex in the power of thinking
at all, much more so in the power of thinking of several
things at once. I hope the coming women may see the
great advantage of training their minds early in life to be
a practical denial of Swift’s cynical assertion that ‘mankind

B2

4 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

are as unfit for flying as for thinking.’ Nothing can be done
well without thought—certainly not gardening, nor house-
keeping, nor managing children. A curious example of
this is given in a recently published account of the most
famous of modern jugglers. He says that he trained his
brain in youth to exert itself in three different ways at
the same time. This no doubt is the reason that he is
now pre-eminent in his own line.

January 3rd.—I will begin by telling you that I was
brought up for the most part in the country, in a
beautiful, wild, old-fashioned garden. This garden,
through circumstances, had remained in the hands of an
old gardener for more than thirty years, which carries
us back nearly a century. Like so many young people
T see about me now, I cared only for the flowers
crowing, that I might have the pleasure of pick-
ing them. Mr. Ruskin says that it is luxurious and
pleasure-loving people who like them gathered. Garden-
ing is, I think, essentially the amusement of the middle-
aged and old. The lives of the young, as a rule, are too
full to give the time and attention required.

Almost all that has remained in my mind of my
young days in this garden is how wonderfully the old
man kept the place. He succeeded in flowering many
things year after year with no one to help him, and with
the frost in the valley to contend against in spring. It
was difficult, too, for him to get seeds or plants, since the
place was held by joint owners, whom he did not like to
ask for them. The spot was very sheltered, and that is
one of the greatest of all secrets for plant cultivation. An
ever-flowing mill-stream ran all round the garden; and
the hedges of China-roses, Sweetbriar, Honeysuckle, and
white Hawthorn tucked their toes into the soft mud, and
throve year after year. The old man was a philosopher
in his way, and when on a cold March morning my

JANUARY 5

sisters and I used to rush out after lessons and ask him
what the weather was going to be, he would stop his
digging, look up at the sky, and say: ‘ Well, miss, it may
be fine and it may be wet; and if the sun comes out, it
will be warmer.’ After this solemn announcement he
would wipe his brow and resume his work, and we went
off, quite satisfied, to our well-known haunts in the
Hertfordshire woods, to gather Violets and Primroses for
our mother, who loved them. All this, you will see, laid
a very small foundation for any knowledge of garden-
ing; and yet, owing to the vivid character of the impressions
of youth, it left a memory that was very useful to me when
I took up gardening later in life. To this day I can smell
the tall white double Rockets that throve so well in the
damp garden, and scented the evening air. They grew
by the side of glorious bunches of Oriental Poppies and
the on-coming spikes of the feathery Spirea aruncus.
This garden had peculiar charms for us, because, though
we hardly realised it, such gardens were already
beginning to grow out of fashion, sacrificed to the new
bedding-out system, which altered the whole gardening
of Europe. I shall allude to this again. I can never
think of this old home without my thoughts recurring
to Hood’s poem ‘I remember! I remember!’ too well
known perhaps, even by the young, to justify my quoting
it here. Equally graven on my memory is a much less
familiar little poem my widowed mother used to say
to me as we walked together up and down the gravel
paths, with the primrose sky behind the tall Beeches of
the neighbouring park. For years I never knew where it
came from, nor where she learnt it in her own sentimental
youth. Not long ago I found it in a book of selections.
It was written by John Hamilton Reynolds, that warm
friend of poor Keats, who, as Mr. Sidney Colvin tells us
in his charming Life of the poet, never rose to any great

6 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

eminence in either literature or law, and died in 1852, as
clerk of the county, at Newport, Isle of Wight. As Mr.
Colvin remarks, it is only in his association with Keais
that his name will live. Yet my mother loved the poem,
which is full of the sentiment of our little home :—
Go where the water glideth gently ever,
Glideth through meadows that the greenest be;

Go, listen to our own belovéd river,
And think of me.

Wander in forests where the small flower layeth
Its fairy gem beneath the giant tree;
Listen to the dim brook pining while it playeth,
And think of me.

Watch when the sky is silver pale at even,
And the wind grieveth in the lonely tree;
Go out beneath the solitary heaven,
And think of me.

And when the moon riseth as she were dreaming,
And treadeth with white feet the lulléd sea,
Go, silent as a star beneath her beaming,
And think of me.

But enough of these old woman’s recollections, and back
to the present, for the sentiment of one generation is very
apt to appear as worthless sentimentality to the next.
The garden I have now is a small piece of flat ground
surrounding an ordinary suburban house. Kitchen-
garden, flower-garden, house and drive can scarcely cover
more than two acres. The garden is surrounded by large
forest trees, Spanish Chestnuts and Oaks, whose wicked
roots walk into all the beds almost as fast as we cut them
off. The soil is dry, light and sandy, and ill-adapted to
garden purposes. Weare only sixteen miles from London,
and on unfavourable days, when the wind is in the
blighting south-east, the afternoons are darkened by
the smoke of the huge city. This is an immense dis-

JANUARY 7

advantage to all plant life and very injurious to Roses
and many other things. For five or six months in the
winter I live away in London. People often envy me
this, and say: ‘What could you do in the garden in the
winter?’ But no true gardener would make this remark,
as there is much to be done at all times and seasons.
Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of
the imagination. You are always living three, or indeed
six, months hence. I believe that people entirely devoid
of imagination never can be really good gardeners. To
be content with the present, and not striving about the
future, is fatal.

Living in London in the winter necessitates crowding
the little greenhouse to overflowing with plants and
flowers adapted for sending to London—chosen because
they will bear the journey well, and live some time in
water on their arrival.

January 16th.—I can hardly do better to-day than
tell you about my dark London room, and what I have in
it as regards plant life in this the worst month of the year.
I will begin with the dead and dried things that only bear
the memory of the summer which is gone. At the door
stand two bright-green olive-jars that came from Spain,
into which are stuck large bunches of the white seed-vessels
of Honesty and some flowers of Everlastings (Helichrysum
bracteatum). These last are tied in bunches on to Bamboo
sticks, to make them stand out. Inside the room, on the
end of the piano, is a large dish of yellow, green, and white
Gourds. I grow them because they have that peculiar
quality, in common with Oranges and autumn leaves, of
appearing to give out in the winter the sunlight they have
absorbed in the summer. Their cultivation does not
always succeed with me, as they want a better, sunnier
place than I can sometimes afford to give them. In a
very wet summer they fail altogether. The seeds are

8 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

sold in mixed packets ; we sow them at the end of April
grow them on in heat, and plant them out at quite the
end of May. In fact, we treat them exactly as you would
Vegetable-marrows, only we train them over a fence.

On the backs of my armchairs are thin Liberty silk
oblong bags, like miniature saddle-bags, filled with dried
Lavender, Sweet Verbena, and Sweet Geranium leaves.
This mixture is much more fragrant than the Lavender
alone. The visitor who leans back in his chair wonders
from where the sweet scent comes.

On the side ledge of two large windows I have pots
of the common Ivy of our hedges. We digit up any time
in the spring, and put it into the pots, which are then
sunk into the ground under the shade of some wall, and
kept well watered. Before bringing it into the room in
winter, it is trained up on an iron stake or Bamboo-cane,
singly or in bunches, to give variety to its shapes. If kept
tolerably clean and watered, this Ivy is practically unkill-
able, even in London.

Then there are some pots of the long-suffering Aspidis-
tras, the two kinds—variegated and dark green. These also
want nothing but plenty of water, and sponging the dust
off the leaves twice a week. They make pretty pot-plants
if attended to during the summer in the country. They
should be well thinned out and every injured leaf cut off,
tied together towards the middle, kept growing all the
summer in the greenhouse, and encouraged to grow tall ;
they are then more graceful and satisfactory. They
seldom want dividing or re-potting. I have two sorts of
India-rubber plants—the large-leaved, straight-growing
common Ficus elastica, and the Ficus elastica indica,
which is a little more delicate, and the better for more
heat in summer ; but it has a smaller leaf, and grows in a
much more charming way than the other. Keeping the
leaves very clean is of paramount importance with both

JANUARY 9

these plants. During the winter they want very litle
watering, yet should never be allowed to get quite dry, as
this would make the leaves droop. If, on the other hand,
you see a single yellow spot on the leaves, you may be
sure that they are too damp ; and, if watering is continued,
the leaves will turn yellow, and eventually fall one by one.
When they are growing in heat during the summer, they
must be watered freely and the leaves well syringed.
Both kinds propagate very easily. The top shoots strike
in sand and heat; and so do single leaves, if cut out with
the eye and stuck round the edge of the pot. Another
plant on the window-sill, Phalangiwm liliago variegatum,
is of the same family as St. Bruno’s Lily, that lovely
early June flower in our gardens. It makes a most
excellent pot-plant, young or old, for a room at all times
of the year. It has a charming growth, and throws out
branches on which young plants grow ; these can be left
alone, or cut off and potted up in small pots, in which case
they root easily in summer, or in a little heat at other
times of the year. The flower which comes on the plant
in summer is quite insignificant. It is very easy of
cultivation, though not quite hardy ; and yet, when grown
in a little heat, has all the appearance of the foliage of a
delicate stove-plant.

In the middle of the room is a Pandanus veitchii.
This must be sparingly watered. It is a delightful winter
pot-plant in all its sizes. The offsets that come round
the stems of the old plant root very easily in heat. It
does not mind the heat of the fire, but resents frost on the
window-pane. Cocos weddeliana and its varieties are
most useful and well-known drawing-room plants, from
South America. To save time, it is best to buy small
plants from a nurseryman, and grow them on. They can,
however, be grown from seed in a hot-bed in spring, but
they are not very quick growers.

to POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

I have, wedged in Japanese vases in the Japanese way,
which is so highly decorative,! two branches of Physalis
Alkekengi (Winter Cherry) grown from seed. They last
much longer in a room, I find, if cut, stuck into clean
water, and held up by the wedge, than they do when
growing in a pot; cutting the plants well back makes
them a better shape, and they flower and fruit more freely
the following year.

In a brass Indian vase on a corner of the chimney-
piece there are some long branches of the Double Plum
(Prunus spinosa flore pleno). These branches, with their
bright green, bring spring into the room more effectively
than anything I know. ‘The little shrub is easy of
cultivation, and more than most things repays potting-up
and forcing. We plant them out in spring in a half-
shady reserve border, and in August we cut with a spade
round the roots of those plants which we intend to pot
up in October. They do best if allowed to rest alternate
years. The charming single Dewtzia gracilis is treated in
exactly the same way.

Never forget, in the arranging of cut flowers, that all
shrubby plants and many perennials last much longer
in water if the stalks are peeled. The reason is obvious :
the thick bark prevents the absorption of enough water.
In the case of succulent plants, splitting up the ends of
the stalks is often sufficient.

On a table below the chimney-piece is a small
flower-glass filled with a pretty early greenhouse flower,

‘ For a description of what this means I must refer you to
Mr. J. Conder’s interesting book (The Flowers of Japan and the Art
of Floral Arrangement), and to a review of it reprinted at the end
of this volume, by kind permission of Mr. W. Robinson, from The
Garden (37 Southampton Street, Strand) of October 6th, 1894. My
allusions to cut-flower decorations all the year round will not be
understood without a careful reading of this article.

JANUARY ir

orange and red, called Chorozemia, which does well in
water. I have made a considerable study of the things
that last well in water, as my greenhouse room is very
limited, and it has to hold all the plants that are planted
out next summer. The usual Primula sinensis,
Cinerarias, and many other things die before they get up
to London at all. In summer the study is for the sake
of my friends, as I send away flowers in large quantities,
and I know nothing so disappointing as to receive in
London a box of flowers, none of which are capable of re-
viving when put into water. On the table, by the side of
the glass mentioned above, stands a little saucer with
precious, sweet-smelling Geranium leaves. These float
on the water, patterning the white surface of the saucer,
and supporting the delicious scented flowers, so valuable
in January, of the Chimonanthus fragrans, with its pretty
brown and yellow petals growing, as they do, on the bare
branches of the shrub. My plant of Chimonanthus is
against a wall. It flowers every year with a little care, for
it is not very old, but it does not grow in our light soil
with the strength and luxuriance it acquires in clay or
loam. In Hertfordshire, for instance, quite long branches
can be cut from it, which look very beautiful in the Japanese
wedges. Our plant gets sufficiently pruned by cutting
back the flowering branches. We water it thoroughly
with liquid manure when the leaves are forming in May,
and mulch it with rotten manure in October. Jasminum
nudiflorum, which also flowers well in the winter with us,
we treatin the same way, only pruning out whole branches
when it has done flowering in spring. No general
cutting-back is desirable, as that spoils the growth of the
plant for picking next year. In separate different-sized
glasses round the saucer I have a bunch of Neapolitan
Violets, some Roman MHyacinths, Ivy-leaved sweet
Geraniums, and an excessively pretty light-red Amaryllis,

12 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

from bulbs sent to me this autumn straight from
Mauritius, which flower well in the little stove. All
these come from a small greenhouse, part of which
is divided off so as to allow of its being kept at
stove heat. A fortnight ago we had large bunches of
Echeveria retusa, a most useful, easily managed, winter-
flowering plant. It looks very well on the dinner-table,
and lasts a long time in water. Dividing and re-potting
in April, and keeping it on a sunny shelf through the
summer, is almost all the care it requires. Freesias, too,
are well worth growing. The success of all Cape flower-
ing bulbs seems to depend on the attention paid to the plant
while the leaves are still growing. Many gardeners, when
they have cut the flowers, neglect the plants. When the
leaves die down, the bulbs want well baking and drying
up in full sun, laying the pots on their sides, shaking out
the bulbs in June or July, sorting them, taking off
the young ones, re-potting, and growing on for early
forcing.

On a flower-table by the window are glasses with
evergreens. J always cut with discretion my Magnolia
grandiflora ; not avery large plant either, yet I think it
does it nothing but good. The clean, shiny, dark-green
leaves, with their beautiful rust-red lining, are so effective
in a room; andif the stalks are peeled, they last quite
a month in water without deterioration. You know, I
daresay, the old nursery secret of growing either wheat
or canary-seed on wet moss. You fill some shallow pan
or small basin with moss, and keep it quite wet. Sow
your seed thickly on the moss, and put the pan away in a
dark cupboard for nine or ten days. When about two
inches high, bring it out and put it in a sunny window,
turning it round, so as to make it grow straight. Wheat
is white at the base with brave little sword-blades of green,
on which often hangs a drop of clear water. Canary-seed is

JANUARY 13

red, like Rhubarb, at the bottom and green at the top. I
know nothing more charming to grow in dull town rooms
or sick rooms than these two seeds. They come to per-
- fection in about three weeks, and last for another five or
six. Grown in small saucers, they make a pretty dinner-
table winter decoration. Another rather effective change
for a dinner-table is the leaves of Bamboos, put all day into
water to prevent them curlingup. They are then laid on
the table-cloth in a Japanese pattern, according to the taste
of the decorator, with an occasional flower to give point
to the design. Double red Geraniums, late-flowering
Chrysanthemums, Primulas, even clumps of Holly or
red berries, all do equally well for this purpose.

Growing acorns, either suspended by a thin wire in a
bottle, or planted in wet moss—five or six of them together
—in flat pans, are pretty. If put into heat in October, they
are in full leaf in the middle of January; but if grown
in a cool room, the leaves only expand later.

I think it may be desirable for me to say something
each month about cooking. Many people neglect to use
things which are now so easily got with or without a
garden. This foreign way of cooking Potatoes makes
a nice variety :—After partially boiling them, cut the
Potatoes into slices when cold, and put them into a
saucepan. Cover them with milk to finish cooking them,
and add fresh butter, Parsley, pepper, and salt.

Salsifys are quite easily grown, and are very good if
thrown into vinegar and water, well oiled, cut into small
slices, and warmed up with a white sauce in shells, like
scalloped oysters. Add a little cheese and breadcrumbs,
and brown in the oven.

No one who eares for vegetables and has a garden
should fail to refer constantly to ‘The Vegetable Garden,’
already mentioned. It is an invaluable book, and the
number and variety of the vegetables it describes is a

14 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

revelation to those who have only the ordinary English
idea of the vegetables that are worth growing.

Celeriac is an excellent vegetable, not very common in
England, and, when carefully cooked, with a good brown
sauce, forms a valuable contribution to the winter supply.
One of the constant difficulties in the management of a
house, whether large or small, where the vegetables are
grown and not bought, is that the gardener brings them in,
and the cook throws them away into a corner of the scullery
or into the pig-tub. Only last summer a gardener from a
large place in the neighbourhood said to me while walking
round my small garden: ‘ What! you grow Cardoons ?
I took in beautiful ones last year, but they were never
used; the cook said she didn’t know how to cook them.’
The following is a good receipt:—The length of time
Cardoons require in cooking depends on age and size, and
varies from half an hour to three or four hours. Scrape
the stalks, and pull off all that is thready outside. Cut
them into bits about four or five inches long, or longer if
served in a long narrow dish with marrow on toast at each
end. Ags you cut them, throw them into a basin full of
water, into which you put a little flour to keep them a
good colour. When all are prepared, have ready a large
crockery stewpan with boiling water, herbs, a little salt
and pepper, and a good-sized piece of raw bacon. The
rind of the bacon should be cut in little bits, but not so
small as to get mixed with the Cardoons. Boil the whole
slowly, and prepare a brown sauce apart with well-
flavoured stock. Thicken this with flour (burnt to a light-
coffee colour), butter, and a little sherry. Let it simmer
for two hours, skimming it well. Strain it half an hour
before serving.

The American Cranberries, so generally and so cheaply
sold in London, are very pretty and very nice if well stewed
in a crockery saucepan with water and sugar; a small

JANUARY 1s

pinch of powdered ginger brings out their flavour. They
are always eaten in America with turkeys, as we eat
apple-sauce with goose. Many people do not know that
turkeys are natives of America, and that the French
word dinde is merely a shortening of coq d'Inde (India
being the name given to America for some time after its
discovery). lt is curious to think that these birds, now
so common an article of food at this time of year, were
totally unknown to the luxurious Romans. The Cran-
berries should not be mashed up, but should look like
stoned cherries in syrup. They can be eaten with chicken
or game, or with roast mutton instead of red-currant
jelly. In Norway the small native Cranberry is eaten
with any stew, especially with hares and ptarmigan.
The custom of eating sweets with meat seems to come
to us from Germany and the North; the French hate it.

One of the eternal trials to every housekeeper is the
making of coffee. I always use half Mocha and half
Plantation. When in the country, I roast the beans
at home; and the two kinds must be done separately,
as they are not the same size. For breakfast coffee a
small quantity of ground Chicory—the best French—is
a great improvement, and increases the health-giving
properties of coffee and milk; but it should never be used
for black coffee. The beans should in damp weather be
warmed and dried a little before grinding; it freshens
them up, as it does biscuits. One of the mysterious
reasons for the flat tastelessness of coffee one day and not
another is the coffee-grinder not being cleaned out; a
tablespoonful of stale ground coffee will spoil the
whole. Other reasons are—either the water not boil-
ing, or the water having boiled a long time, or water
that has boiled and cooled being warmed up again; this
is fatal, as it is with tea. I find the modern crockery
percolators a great improvement on the old tin ones,

16 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

which make very good coffee for a short time; but the
lining rubs off, and the tin gets black inside, which will
destroy the colour of the best coffee. At Goode’s, in
Audley Street, or at the Atmospheric Churn Company, in
Bond Street, they will sell you any portion of these
percolators apart ; and the most terrible of breakers can
hardly smash everything at once. Many cooks refuse to
use Goode’s excellent crockery fireproof stewpans, on
the plea that they break. But new ones cost no more
than the re-tinning of copper stewpans, which has to be
done every year. For all stews, and for the cooking of
vegetables and fruit, they are invaluable—and, in the
case of fruit, indispensable.

January 18th—One excellent way of arranging
flowers in most rooms is to have a table, a kind of altar,
especially dedicated to them. This does the flowers or
plants much more justice than dotting them about the
room. If, however, flowers or branches are arranged in
vases in the Japanese style, the more they are isolated in
prominent places that show them off, the better.

I am now staying with a friend who has no stove,
only one greenhouse; and her flower-table, standing in the
window, looks charming. At the back are two tall glass
vases with Pampas grass in them, feathery and white,
as we never can keep it in London ; a small Eucalyptus-
tree in a pot, cut back in summer and well shaped; a
fine pot of Arums, just coming into flower; a small fern
in front, and a bunch of paper-white Narcissus. These
last, I fear, must have been grown elsewhere, as they
could not be so early here without heat and very careful
growing-on.

January 20th.—I came from London, to pass two
or three days in the country and look after my garden,
as usual. I make lists and decide on the seeds for
the year, and look to the mulching of certain plants.

JANUARY 3

Hardly anything grows here to perfection when left
alone. Most plants require either chalk, peat, leaf-
mould or cow-manure, and half-tender things are now
the better for covering up with matting or Bracken-fern.
It is seldom of any use to come so early as this; but
there has been no cold this year, though one feels
it must come. Oh! such days and days of gloom and
darkness; but to-day the wind freshened from the north-
east, and I could breathe once more. How delightful
it is to be out of London again! There is always plenty
to do and to enjoy. How the birds sing, as if it were
spring! Ilove the country in winter ; one expects nothing,
and everything is a joy and a surprise. The Freesias are
flowering well; they improve each year as the bulbs get
larger. Cyclamens are in the greenhouse, and a large,
never-failing, old white Azalea, which forces faithfully and
uncomplainingly every year, and from which we cut so
many blooms.

The first Aconite ! Does any flower in summer give the
same pleasure? The blue-green blades of the Daffodils
and Jonquils are firmly and strongly pushing through
the cold brown earth ; nothing in all the year gives such a
sense of power and joy. One is grateful, too, for our
Surrey soil and climate—to live where it never can rain
too much, and where it never accords with Shelley’s
wonderful description of damp :—

And hour by hour, when the air was still,

The vapours arose which have strength to kill.
At morn they were seen, at noon they were felt,
At night they were darkness no star could melt.

These mild winters have a wonderful effect on plant
life. The Solanwm jasminoides looks as fresh as in
November, and as if he meant to stand it out; we shall
see. In front of my window, on the ground floor, I have

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18 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

been rigging up a delightful arrangement for feeding Tom-
tits. I hang half a pound of suet and a cocoanut on either
end of a piece of thick string. This should be long
enough to reach the lower window when suspended from
a small iron rod by a ring hanging at the end of it, the
rod being nailed to the window-sill above. The string is
passed through the top of the cocoanut, of which the
bottom is cut off, making a hole large enough for a bird
to getin. It greatly adds to the artistic effect to hang
the cocoanut about a foot lower than the suet, or vice
versd. The small birds cling to the string while they
peck their food, and so make a continual and beautiful
design. To help them to cling, a few little crossbars of
wood are knotted into the string and form a sort of rough
ladder. In really cold weather, or with snow on the
ground, they become wonderfully tame. Another way is
to plant a post in the ground with one or two cross-bars
nailed to the top, on which are hung similar arrangements
to those just described of cocoanut and suet, or an old
bone.

This warm winter has suited the Christmas Roses, which
are uncommonly good. The great secret in light soils is
to mulch them well while they are making their leaves.
Water them with liquid manure when their flower-buds
are forming, and protect them with lights in the flowering
season, especially keeping them from heavy rains’ or
snow. For these reasons grow them in a bed by them-
selves. In the greenhouse I found a Chovsya ternata,
which I had cut back hard last May, covered all over
with its beautiful white flowers. It had been forced in
the stove for about ten days. This is a most delightful
plant in every way, easy to strike and to layer, quite
hardy; though, when growing outside, the flowers are
sometimes a little injured by hard late frosts. It is invalu-
able for cutting to send to London at all times of year, as

JANUARY 19

it lasts for a long time in water, and the shiny dark-green
leaves look especially well with any white flowers. The
more it is cut, the better the plant flourishes. Every
spare piece of wall should have a plant of Choisya against
it. It is restrained and yet free in its growth, and is
therefore even more useful in small gardens than in large
ones. It does very well in light soil, but responds to a
little feeding. I have some giant Violets which I got
from the South of France ; here, I believe, they are called
‘Princess Beatrice.’ They are twice the size of Czars,
and very sweet. They are doing well in the frame, but
look rather draggled and miserable outside ; after all, it is
only the end of January.

In mid-winter my heart warms to the common Laurels.
In wet winters, especially, they look so flourishing and
happy, and they will grow in such bad places. I am sure
I shall abuse them so often that I must say, however
much they are reduced in a garden, keep some plants
in places where few other things would flourish. They
will always remain a typical example of Mme. de Stael’s
good description of evergreens:—‘Le deuil de l’été
et lornement de Vhiver.’ All hardy fruit-trees, like
Jasminum nudiflorum and Chimonanthus fragrans, are
better pruned in January than in February, if the weather
make it possible.

January 22nd.—I take back to London with me to-
day, amongst other things, some Lachenalia aurea. All
Lachenalias are worth growing. They are little Cape
bulbs, which have to be treated like the Freezias, watered
as long as the leaves are green, and then dried. They
all force well, and L. aurea flowers earlier than the other
Lachenalias, and is very pretty and effective. This
variety has the great merit of being a true yellow by
candle-light.

Walking along the streets to-day, I stopped to look at

C2

20 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

a really beautiful large cross, entirely composed of moss
dotted all over with the lovely little early single Snow-
drops. Although I have the strongest objection to the
modern use of flowers for the dead, natural and lovable
as was the original idea, I had to admire this specimen.
Could a more beautiful winter memorial for a young girl
be seen, or one which better carries out in these cold
days the idea of the French poet Malherbe ?

Elle était du monde ou les plus belles choses
Ont le pire destin ;

Et rose, elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses—
L’espace d’un matin.

The French have carried the abuse of this fashion of
funeral wreaths and crosses to an even greater extent than
we have here. I shall never forget once in Paris going
up to the Pére-Lachaise cemetery on a fine morning to
visit the grave of a young and much-lamented woman.
The wreaths were so numerous that they had to be taken
up in a cart the day before. The night had been wet, and
the surroundings of the grave were a mass of unapproach-
able corruption and decay.

Last April, when I was at Kew, the gardener there
shook into my pocket-handkerchief a little seed of
Cineraria cruenta, the type-plant from the Cape, and the
origin of all the Cinerarias of our greenhouses. It has a
very different and much taller growth than the cultivated
ones, and I am most anxious to see if it will doin water,
which the ordinary ones do not. It varies in shade from
pale to deep lilac, rather like a Michaelmas Daisy. Get-
ting seeds from abroad of type-plants is very interesting
gardening. Pelargoniums of all kinds are weeds at the
Cape, and, in order to be able to resist the long droughts,
they have, in South Africa, tuberous roots like Dahlias.
This is well seen in Andrews’ ‘ Botanist’s Repository,’

JANUARY 21

which I shall mention among the March books. Pelar-
goniums, under cultivation and with much watering, no
longer require these tubers, and they disappear. Seed
was sent to me from some of the wild plants at the Cape,
and even the first year, as the plants grew, there were
the little tubers, quite marked and distinct.

January 31st—With the high temperature we have
had this year, one is apt to forget the horrors of a severe
winter, till reminded just lately by two very cold nights.
The frosted windows of my bedroom made me think of a
charming little poem which appeared last year in the
Pali Mall Gazette at the time of the very cold weather ;--

JOHN FROST

The door was shut, as doors should be,
Before you went to bed last night,

Yet John Frost has got in, you see,
And left your windows silver white.

He must have waited till you slept,
And not a single word he spoke,

But pencill’d o’er the panes and crept
Away again before you woke.

And now you cannot see the trees
Nor fields that stretch beyond the lane ;
But there are fairer things than these
His fingers traced on every pane.

Rocks and castles towering high,
Hills and dales, and streams and fields,
And knights in armour riding by
With plumes and spears and shining shields.

And here are little boats, and there

Big ships with sails spread to the breeze ;
And yonder palm-trees, waving fair

On islands set in silver seas

22 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

And butterflies with gauzy wings,
And birds and bees, and cows and sheep,
And fruit and flowers, and all the things
You see when you are sound asleep.

For, creeping softly underneath
The door when all the lights are out,
John Frost takes every breath you breathe,
And knows the things you think about.

He paints them on the window-pane,
In fairy lines, with frozen steam ;
And when you wake, you see again
The wondrous things you saw in dream.

Londoners have the great advantage, in hard frosts,
of being able to enjoy these frozen pictures, for nowhere
can they be seen to such perfection as on the large
window-panes of cold empty shops. Many people must
have remarked this last winter.

23

FEBRUARY

Forced bulbs—The exhibitions of the Royal Horticultural Society—
Karly spring salads and vegetables—Rhubarb tarts —Orange
marmalade—Receipts by a French chef.

February 8th.—This is essentially the month of forced
bulbs—Hyacinths, Tulips, Jonquils, Narcissuses—charm-
ing thingsin themselves, and within easy reach of everyone
who can afford to buy them either as bulbs in the autumn
or as cut flowers from the shops in spring. Bulbs do not
even require a greenhouse, as they can be grown in a
cellar and then in a frame, or, with care, quite as success-
fully in a room with a south window. They depend on
attention, and the result is so certain that they are not
very interesting to the gardener, nor do they represent
any variety of greenhouse culture. All the spring bulbs
are cultivated in much the same way. Any of the old
garden books published between 1840 and 1850,
especially Mrs. Loudon’s ‘Gardening for Ladies,’ give
detailed instructions on the growing of bulbs in pots and
glasses, and in all other ways.

One of my great pleasures in London in the early
spring is going to the exhibition of the Royal Horticultural
Society, at the Drill Hall, Westminster. I think all
amateurs who are keen gardeners ought to belong to this
society—partly as an encouragement to it, and also
because the subscriber of even one guinea a year gets a
great many advantages. He can go to these fortnightly

24 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

exhibitions, as well as to the great show at the Temple
Gardens in May, free, before the public is admitted. He
has the run of the society’s library in Victoria Street ;
he receives free the yearly publications, which are a series
of most interesting lectures (I will give some account of
them at the end of the year) ; and he is annually presented
with a certain number of plants. These fortnightly
meetings at the Drill Hall are instructive and varied,
though they might be much more so. Nevertheless, I
think an amateur cannot go to them without learning
something, and Iam surprised to find how few people take
advantage of them. The entrance fee is only a shilling.
IT went to one of these exhibitions the other day. The
great mass of blooms shown consisted of beautifully grown
potfuls of Cyclamens in great variety of colour, and of
Chinese Primulas; these last, to my mind, are rather
uninteresting plants, but they show great improvement
in colour as now cultivated. What pleased me most
were miniature Irises, grown in flat pans, and some
charming spring Snowflakes (Lewcojwm vernum) grown in
pots. These are far more satisfactory grown in this way
than are the finest Snowdrops in pots, their foliage being
so much prettier. The little blue Scillas are extremely
effective grown in pans through a carpet of the ordinary
mossy Saxifrage.

February 14th.—Salads are rather a difficulty during
the early spring in English gardens. In seasonless
London everything is always to be bought. I wonder
why Mache (Corn Salad, or Lamb’s Lettuce), so much
grown in France, is so little cultivated here? People
fairly well up in gardening come back from France in the
winter, thinking they have discovered something new.
Mache is a little difficult to grow in very light soils, and
the safest plan is to make several sowings in July and
August. We find it most useful, but, without constant

FEBRUARY 25

reminding, no English gardener thinks of it at all, though
it is in all the seed catalogues. As it is an annual, with-
out sowing you naturally don’t getit; and if sown too late,
itis bound to fail. In very dry weather we have to water
it at first.

If Beetroot is carelessly dug up and the roots broken,
they bleed, which causes them to come to the table pale
and tasteless. This is the fault of the gardener, not of the
cook. Some English cooks boil them in vinegar ; this
hardens them, and makes them unwholesome. They are
much better slowly baked in an oven, and not boiled at all.
The poor Beetroot is often considered unwholesome, but
if it is served with a little of the water it is boiled in, or if
baked with a little warm water poured over it, a squeeze
of lemon instead of vinegar, and a little oil added, I think
the accusation is unjust. Beetroot served hot and cut in
slices, with a white Béchamel sauce (see ‘ Dainty Dishes’),
makes avery good winter vegetable. The Old English
dish of Beetroot sliced and laid round a soup-plate with
pulled Celery, mixed with a Mayonnaise sauce, built up in
the middle, is excellent with all roast meats. At all the
best Italian grocers’ in London they sell a dried Green
Pea from Italy, which makes a pretty purée both as a
vegetable and as a soup in winter, especially if coloured
with a very little fresh Spinach, not the colouring sold by
grocers. The Peas must be soaked all night, then well
boiled, rubbed smooth through a sieve, and a little cream
and butter added. A nicer winter vegetable cannot be.
It is really made exactly like the old pease-pudding served
with pork, only not nearly so dry.

Imantophilums are one of the most effective and
beautiful of our greenhouse plants at this time of the year,
and last very well in water. We kept ours out of doors
in an open pit all through last summer. As they threw
up several flower-spikes, which we picked off, we feared

26 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

that they might not do so well this spring ; instead of
which, I think they have never done better or flowered
more freely. A little liquid manure helps them when
in flower. Though a Cape plant, the leaves do not die
down ; and so it must be kept growing, or the foliage is
injured.

February 27th.—I have lately evolved a good spring
vegetable dish. The common green Turnip-tops, which
are wholesome, but not palatable if plainly boiled, are
delicious when treated like the French purée of Spinach
(see ‘ Dainty Dishes ’), rubbed through a sieve, and mixed
with butter and cream. They are a beautiful bright
green. In the country young Nettles done in the same
Way are very good, but they must be fresh—a state in
which they are not to be hadin large towns. I have been
told how curious it is that nettles never grow in absolutely
wild places, but are only to be found in localities more or
less haunted by man.

I think Rhubarb, which is so largely grown and
eaten in England, both forced and out of doors, is never
used on the Continent. I wonder if this is because it
does not stand the severe frosts of the mid-Europe
winters. We dig up plants and put them into boxes, and
force them under the frames of our greenhouse. For
later eating, we also cover it in the garden, as everybody
does, with pots surrounded by leaves. I do not think
that the ordinary English tart is the best way of cooking
Rhubarb, unless done in the following manner :—When
young and tender, cut it up into pieces the length of a
finger, and throw them into cold water, to prevent the ends
drying, while a syrup is prepared in an earthenware sauce-
pan with sugar, afew of the rough pieces of the Rhubarb,
and a small pinch of ginger. Throw the cold water away
from the Rhubarb, strain the syrup, boil it up, and pour it
over the pieces. Stew it for a very short time till tender

FEBRUARY 27

without mashing it up. It looks better if the pieces are
slightly arranged in the dish. If anything iron touches
the Rhubarb or the syrup, they turn purple and look
horrid. Properly cooked, Rhubarb should be of a pretty
pink or green colour. Many doctors forbid it. I think it
probably may be unwholesome for meat-eating people ;
this is the case with so many fruits and vegetables.

All my tarts throughout the year are made with the
crust baked apart, and the fruit, stewed previously, juicy
and cold. Shortly before dinner make the paste called
in ‘Dainty Dishes’ ‘crisp paste’ for tarts; crumple up
kitchen paper into a mound the height you wish your
crust to be, place it in the pie-dish—the round-shaped
dishes are the prettiest—cover this with a clean sheet of
buttered paper, lay your paste over this, bake in the usual
way. When done, lift off the crust, take out the paper,
pour in the fruit (which can be iced, if desired), put a
little raw white of egg round the rim of the pie-dish, and
replace the crust. In this way an orange or a strawberry
tart can be made without cooking the fruit at all, except
in the usual compote way of pouring boiling syrup over it.

Towards the end of February is the best time for
making Orange Marmalade (see ‘ Dainty Dishes’), as the
Seville oranges in London are then at their best. In all
cases when old jam pots, glasses, &c., are used for pre-
serving, it is very desirable to wash them thoroughly in
clean water, avoiding all soda or soap, and, when dry,
powder them with a little sulphur and wipe clean. If
soda is used in anything connected with fruit, it has an
injurious chemical action.

The following are the translations of a few careful
receipts which were written out by a very excellent French
chef. They belong to so entirely different a cawsine from
our ordinary modest and economical receipts, that I think
they may be not without interest to some people. It is

28 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

worth noting how, when a really good French cook wishes
to instruct, he is careful to go into the minutest details.

Pot au feu Soup.—Proportions: 15 lbs. of beef,
53 lbs. of veal, 1 chicken, 25 gallons of water, 3 fine‘carrots,
1 big turnip, 1 large onion, a bunch of parsley, half a head
of celery, a parsnip, 2 cloves, and some salt.

Remove the fat and tie up the beef and the veal, putting
them in a large saucepan; fill the saucepan with cold
water to within a little more than an inch from the
brim, place the saucepan on the fire with the lid off, |
add some salt, and let it boil till the seum shows on the
surface ; remove it witha skimmer. Assoon as it seems
inclined to boil over, add a few spoonfuls of cold water, so
as to make the scum accumulate as much as possible.
When at last it boils violently, drop in the vegetables ;
remove the saucepan to one side of the fire, so that it
shall boil only on one side; put on the lid, and let it boil
undisturbed, evenly and regularly. After two hours
remove the veal. An hour later add the chicken, and,
three hours after, strain the soup, without stirring it up,
through a strainer on to a napkin stretched over a
receptacle large enough to contain the soup. The soup
may be skimmed before or after straining.

This stock does for making any kind of soup, Julienne,
Brunoise, Crotite au pot, and for all purées of vegetables.

Consommé.—Consommé means the foundation of the
soup; this foundation ought always to be clear, lightly
coloured, and, above all, strong.

Take about 2 lbs. of beef and veal, without fat, chop
them up together, and put into a basin. Add half of the
white of an egg, work the meats with a wooden spoon and
a glass of water, continue to mix with about 1} gallon of
good strong stock; put the whole into a small saucepan
with some carcases of birds (raw or cooked), a branch of
celery, and put it to boil on the fire; stir it when there

FEBRUARY 29

with a wooden spoon, so that the meat shall not stick to
the bottom. As soon as it bubbles, remove the saucepan
to a very slow, very moderate, well-regulated fire for two
hours. The stock, made in this way, ought to become
a fine colour, and above all be very clear. Strain it
through a napkin that has been previously rinsed in hot
water.

Julienne Soup.—Inegredients: 3 fine carrots, 2 tur-
nips, 2 small pieces of celery, 2 sprigs of parsley, 1 onion,
the quarter of a large Savoy cabbage, the hearts of
2 lettuces, a bunch of sorrel, and a sprig of chervil.

Scrape each of the vegetables according to its require-
ments. The carrots are cut, in the thickest parts of them,
in transverse sections, about two-thirds of an inch thick ;
shape these into thin, even ribbons by turning the piece
round and round till you reach the centre of the carrot,
which is not used ; then cut these ribbons again into very
fine shreds. Cut the turnips into squares; divide them
into oblong squares about two-thirds of an inch thick; cut
and make them into shreds like the carrots. Cut and shape
the celery in the same way. Remove the hard sides of
the cabbage, and slice it as fine as possible. Slicein the
same way the lettuces, parsley,and onions. The similarity
of the vegetables, as much with regard to their thickness
as to their length, must be strictly preserved; it is one of
the distinguishing characteristics of this soup. Now put
a lump of butter into a good saucepan, rather a large one
and very thick at the bottom. Add the vegetables, all
except the cabbage and the sorrel; these must be scalded
in boiling water apart. Place the other vegetables on a
slow fire till they turn a fine yellow colour without being
burnt; that is the chief characteristic of the soup. As
soon as they are done to a turn, add about 2 quarts of
good stock or consommé, and a pinch of sugar. When it
bubbles, remove to side of fire ; add the sorrel and cabbage,

30 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

after drying them, through a strainer or sieve. The bubbles
should only appear on one side. Skim, and, while on
the fire, remove the grease as itforms. Let it boil for an
hour, if the vegetables are tender ; if not, for longer.

Consommé aux Ailerons (Wing-bone Sowp).—Cut
up the whole of 3 or 4 carrots and 2 turnips into slices of
about the thickness of a shilling. Cut in rounds of the
same thickness, and shaped in the same column-shape,
some cabbage leaves—very white ones. This done, wet
the carrots first with about 2 pints of stock (consommé).
After it has boiled for an hour, add the turnips and
cabbage. Let it boil quite gently by the side of the fire
for a good hour, till the vegetables are quite cooked.

Separately take 12 or 15 wing-bones of chickens, basted
and well trimmed ; let them soak during 1 or 2 hours in
tepid water, drain and put them into a small saucepan,
cover them with stock, and boil up. One hour is enough
to cook them. Drain the wings, trim them very neatly,
bone them, put them in the soup-tureen, add some fried
crusts of bread of the same thickness as the vegetables,
also a bunch of chervil and a pinch of sugar, and put all
together into the soup-tureen. The boiling of all these
vegetables must be done quite slowly, so as to prevent the
stock being disturbed.

Gnocchi a la Creme.—Make a paste (pate 4 choux)
as follows :—Ingredients: 43 oz. of flour, 43 oz. of butter,
11 pint of water, 3 whole eggs (4 if small), a pinch of
salt and of sugar. Put the water, salt, and sugar in a
small saucepan on the fire; when it begins to boil, add
the flour all at once. Stir quickly with a wooden spoon,
and, when well mixed, put the saucepan on a slower
fire; let it dry for a few minutes, and when smooth mix
in the eggs, one by one, till smooth and thick, sticking
to the saucepan. If the paste seems a little too dry,
add a little cream—2 or 3 spoonfuls. Add by degrees

FEBRUARY 31

3 or 4 spoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese. Take
a smaller saucepan of water with some salt init. When
the water is boiling, remove it to the edge of the fire.
Then take two tablespoons, and fill one with the paste,
flattening it with a knife warmed in warm water so as to
form the paste into an oval shape; warm the other
spoon, and push it under the quenelle to remove it from
the first spoon ; then drop it into the boiling water. When
all the quenelles are shaped in this way and thrown into
the saucepan, put it on to the open fire, and let the
quenelles poach for some minutes. As soon as they feel
firm to the touch, remove the Gnocchi one by one with
a strainer, and place them on a cloth till wanted. Make
a Béchamel white sauce. Butter a soufflé-dish, place
the quenelles round the bottom, in a single row one
beside the other, sprinkle this first row with a little
erated Parmesan, and add on the top another layer
of Gnocchis, laid on alternately to the others. Hide
the Gnocchis entirely with the sauce Béchamel, dust
them over with a little grated Gruyére, sprinkle them
lightly with some melted butter, and put them to bake
in a slow oven till well browned without being burnt.
Given about forty to forty-five minutes of baking, the
Gnocchi should swell to twice their original size. Serve
at once.

Béchamel Sauce.—Cut into little squares the half of
a carrot and a small onion; take a small saucepan, put
in a good bit of butter, add the vegetables, fry them
lightly without letting them brown. This done, add a
good tablespoonful of flour, and let the flour cook quite
gently for several minutes on a moderate fire; be es-
pecially careful that it does not stick or get coloured,
which would quite spoil its quality. This done, let it
cool for a moment, then add little by little one pint and
a half of boiling milk; work and stir the sauce without

32 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

ceasing until it boils, remove to side of a slow fire, and
let it cook for an hour. Strain the sauce through a
flannel or muslin into a bain-marie, with a pinch of salt,
and of grated nutmeg very little. Add a good bit of
butter while working it with a small egg-whisk. The
sauce should be very smooth, creamy, and of a good
flavour ; if by chance it is too thick, this can be remedied
by adding a few spoonfuls of good, thick, and sweet
cream.

Pate a Ravioli.—Ingredients for the paste: 9 oz. of
flour, the yelks of 4 eggs, a pinch of salt, a little tepid
water.

Put the flour on a marble slab, make a hole in the
centre, add the yelks of the eggs and the salt, make a
paste, not too solid ; when it is quite even, let it rest for an
hour or two, and cover it with a cloth to prevent it from
getting dry.

Preparation for Ravioli.—Forcemeat of chicken,
or, failing this, one can use veal, if nice and white and
tender. Ingredients: 43 oz. of meat, 24 oz. of panade,
1 oz. of fresh butter, 2 yelks of eggs, salt, and nutmeg.

Remove the sinews and fat carefully from the 45 oz.
of meat. Cut it into little squares, and pound well in a
mortar. Add the panade little by little; when mixed,
add (only a little at a time) the butter when quite
cooled and solid, salt, and nutmeg ; mix these ingredients
thoroughly, giving to them as much consistency as pos-
sible. Now take some boiling salted water in a little
saucepan, and test in it a little bit of the forcemeat the
size of a walnut; let it poach while well on the fire.
Tf it is rather too firm, one can always add a spoonful
of Béchamel or a little thick cream to moisten it.

Parboil in water 1 lb. of spinach, strain it on to a
moistened sieve—the sieve must have been well wiped
to ensure no water remaining in it. Pass the spinach

FEBRUARY 3

through a fine wire sieve. This done, add to the force-
meat two or three dessertspoonfuls of spinach, as much
grated Parmesan cheese, some salt, pepper, and nutmeg,
and a pinch of sugar. Mix all these well together.

Now divide the paste into two equal parts; roll one
part out as thin as possible with a roller, keeping it square
in shape ; slightly moisten the surface with a brush, put
some of the forcemeat in a linen jelly-bag with a narrow
tin socket at the bottom, and drop little balls of the force-
meat all over the surface, in straight lines about 2 in. to
25 in. apart from each other. When the whole is covered,
roll out the remainder of the paste to exactly the same
size and shape, and place it carefully on the top of the
other so as to fit exactly ; press down round each Ravioli
with a small shaping-tin, so as to stick the two layers of
paste together ; cut each Ravioli into rounds, and arrange
them on a small lid of a saucepan floured over so that
the paste should not stick to it.

Have ready a sauté-pan with some boiling water and
salt in it. Five minutes before serving, drop the Ravioli
into the water. As soon as they bubble up, remove to
side of fire to finish cooking, strain them onto a sieve, from
there into a sauté-pan (fairly large), powder them over
with a little grated Parmesan, throw on the Béchamel
sauce, which should be very smooth and not too thick;
finally, add a good-sized piece of fresh butter and a chip
of Paplika. Stir quite gently, so as not to spoil the
Ravioli, and serve them in a casserole or in a crust of
pastry.

Panade for the Forcemeat.—Put about a gill of
water in a saucepan, with a bit of butter the size of a
walnut. Put the saucepan on the fire; as soon as it
boils up, add one tablespoonful and a half of flour; work
the mixture at the side of the fire. This paste should be
of a good, rather firm, consistency. Put it on to a rather

D

34 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

flat dish. Butter the surface lightly, to keep it from
drying, and put it to cool.

Mousse de Volaille.—Take off the fillets, &c., of
three chickens, cut them up into little dice, pound them
into a mortar, and reduce them to a paste; this done,
pass them first through a wire sieve, and afterwards
through a hair sieve or a quenelle sieve. Put this meat
into a moderate-sized basin, and stand it in a cool place
till wanted. Remove the legs from the carcases of the
chickens (these may be used for something else), wash
the carcases in cold water, and let them soak for an hour.

Now take 14 lb. of lean veal, mince it up rather fine,
put it in a saucepan which will hold about three quarts
of liquid, add the half of one white of egg; mix all
together, add two pints of water and nearly a quart of
stock, one chopped onion, one carrot, a little celery, and
the carcases ; boil up on a quick fire, stirring from time
to time with a wooden spoon. As soon as it boils, remove
to side of fire, so that it should only boil on one side, and
quite slowly, removing the grease from time to time.
Let it boil for three hours. Strain the foundation through
a well-rinsed cloth. The above is the foundation for the
Sauce Supréme.

Sauce Supréme.—This sauce requires great care in
making. Put in a saucepan 45 oz. of butter and 33 oz. of
flour. Put the saucepan on a slow fire, and let the flour
cook lightly without getting coloured. As soon as the
flour is cooked, dilute it with the foundation of chicken,
little by little, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon.
So as to be able to spread it out without lumps, keep it
much lighter than ordinary sauces. Stir it all the time
till it boils; when remove it to side of fire, so that it
should but just boil, and that only on one side. Add
two or three raw chopped mushrooms ; as the butter and
steam rise gently to the surface, remove them, and let

FEBRUARY 35

it cook for a good hour. Afterwards strain your sauce
through a fine cullender into a frying-pan, more wide
than deep. Put it on a hot fire, and stir without stopping
with a wooden spoon to prevent it sticking; this is an
important point. Add one or two gills of good sweet
cream. As soon as the sauce sticks to the spoon, that
means itis ready. Strain it through a muslin in a little
bain-marie ; stand the sauce to heat in a saucepan with
hot water in it.

Now put the half of a white of raw egg with the
chicken, mix them well together, add little by little some
good thick fresh cream, and make it blend as much as
possible ; add three or four spoonfuls of cold Sauce
Supréme, and about three gills of thick cream. Test
it by dropping a little of the mixture into water. It
should be soft, not too solid, and well-flavoured. Always
try it before putting in all the cream, or it might become
too limp, which would spoil its quality.

Butter the inside of a round cylinder-shaped mould
with a hole in the centre of it. Put the mould on the
ice for a moment to harden the butter. Fill the mould
with the mixture up to about an inch from the rim. Tap
the mould gently on a napkin folded several times to
equalise the mixture and to heap it together, to prevent
the holes which might form themselves inside the
sponge.

Put a little boiling water in a saucepan large enough
to contain your mould, cover it with a lid, put it in a
very slow oven, and let it poach for twenty-five to thirty
minutes. See that the water in the saucepan does not
boil, for which it is necessary from time to time to add a
drop of cold water. Turn out the mould onto an entrée-
dish ; trim with one or two truffles cooked in Madeira.
Cover the mould lightly with a little of the Sauce

Supréme, and put the rest of the sauce in a sauce-boat.
D2

36 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Mousse de Foies Gras & la Gelée.—Take a cylinder-
shaped mould with an opening in the centre, put the
mould for a second or two onto the ice. This done, pour
into it a glassful of meat jelly, cold without being frozen.
Turn your mould on the ice so as to line it—that is to
say, to make the jelly adhere to the inside of the mould
inathin layer. Replace the mould onto the ice till wanted.

Put into a saucepan or a bain-marie well cleaned out
about three gills of good cream, thick and sweet, stand it
on the ice for several hours; when about to use it, beat
it up with an egg-whisk for seven or eight minutes,
without taking it off the ice. It should rise and become
firm, like the white of an egg. Put it to strain through a
fine strainer.

Pound ina mortar a cooked foie-gras of from 1 lb. 3 0z.
to 1 lb. 5 oz. in weight. Pass the foie-gras through a fine
hair-sieve. Pound with the foie-gras 43 oz. of fresh
butter, put it into a basin, and work it with an egg-whisk
or wooden spoon, and absorb into it gradually three or
four spoonfuls of Sauce Supréme, add a wineglassful of
rather firm meat jelly. The jelly should be tepid and
added quite gradually, working it in all the time so as to
make it quite smooth and soft. Season with salt, pepper,
and nutmeg. If it is winter, work it in a warm place to
prevent its turning, add the whipped cream quickly, and
fill up the mould to the rim. Put the mould into a good,
sized jar, and cover it well with pounded ice, and surround
the mould with it. Leave it in the ice for two hours or
more, according to the season, and especially in summer.
When ready to serve, have a basin filled with hot water,
dip the mould into it so as to be entirely covered, that it
may come away clearly from the mould. Trim with
pieces of jelly.

Nouilles Fraiches (fresh Nowille Paste)—The paste
for Nouille is made in exactly the same way as for

FEBRUARY 37

Ravioli, only it must be kept much firmer. Roll it out
very thin with a roller, and flour it well, so as not to stick.
Cut some strips about 3 in. wide, put several of them
one on the top of the other, and slice them with a knife
into very narrow strips, jth of an inch wide or less.
Spread them out onto a floured plate and cover them with
a cloth. When ready to use them, throw them into a
saucepan of boiling water with salt init; after boiling for
two or three moments put the saucepan on the side of
the fire, stirring a little. Let the paste cook for some
minutes, then strain them well, put them back in the
same saucepan, add a good bit of fresh butter (about 43 oz.
to 5 oz.), three or four spoonfuls of grated Parmesan, salt,
nutmeg, a pinch of sugar, and one of Paplika, a little veal-
stock or meat gravy, mix all well together, and serve in
a casserole.

Céleris en branches, demi-glacés.—Pick and
peel very carefully six or eight heads of celery, according
to their size. Bleach them for fifteen or twenty minutes
in boiling water, dip them in cold water to cool them,
strain them onto a cloth, cut them in two if they are
large, fasten them—that is, re-form the Celery by tying
it together with a little string at each end. Put them
into a saucepan with an onion, one carrot, and a little
bunch of herbs—parsley, thyme, bay. Fill up to the
brim with half stock and half fat—dripping. Boil it up,
then let it cook quite gently by the side of a slow fire or
in the oven. They ought to be just done to a turn after
three or four hours. Strain them onto a cloth, cut them
to equal sizes, remove the outside leaves, if they are hard,
serve in a silver casserole, and sauce them over with a
good half-glaze or a good veal gravy a little thickened.

Lettuce can be treated in the same way.

38 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

MARCH

Slow-growing hardy shrubs—The Swanley Horticultural College—
Gardening as an employment for women—Aucubas berries —
Planting Asparagus—Brussels Sprouts—Sowing annuals—A list
of flowering creepers—‘ The Poet in the City’—Old illustrated
gardening books.

March 2nd.—Of all the low-growing quite hardy shrubs,
especially in small gardens, nothing is more useful for
picking and arranging with all kinds of flowers than the
common Box. The kinds vary a little, some being larger-
leaved than others, and the growth of some plants a little
more graceful and branching. The most desirable kinds
can quite easily be propagated by cuttings stuck into the
ground in a shady place in spring. Its depressing
characteristic for beginners is that Box is very slow-
growing. Next to this in utility comes the common
Barberry, or Berberis vulgaris, as we ought to call it,
which is so well known to everybody now, as it is sold in
the streets of London all through the winter months with
its leaves dyed a dull-red colour. How this is managed
I do not know; I think it spoils the beautiful foliage by
making it all of one tone. With us it turns brown in
severe winters, with an occasional red leaf, but in damp
soils it gets much redder. LBerberis is one of those things
much sown about by the birds, for they eat its pretty
purple berries in quantities. The young seedlings which
come up with us in the beds and shrubberies are easily
moved when quite young, and can be put where they are

MARCH 39

wanted to grow. The best time to move them is wet
weather in July or August. They are plants with a
perfect growth and exceedingly well adapted to waste
places in gardens and the fronts of shrubberies. Spring
bulbs will grow through them, and their yellow flowers
and dark leaves arrange admirably with the common
Daffodil in glass vases. They can also take the place of
the picked Arum leaves, which always droop before the
flowers when put into water. Out of the little stove, all
the winter through, I have long branches of the Asparagus
plumosa. When cut, it is much more effective if trained
up a light branching stick or feathery bamboo. This
gives it support, and it is astonishing how long it lasts in
water. It is extremely decorative, and will produce a
most excellent effect if arranged in the above manner with
only one bright flower added at its base.

March 8th—To-day there has come up from the
country one of the spring gems of the year, a large bunch
of the lilac Daphne, the old Mezerewm. It is a small
shrub, not a quick grower, and most people, especially
gardeners, are afraid to cut it. Butif this is done bravely
at the time of flowering, I think it only grows stronger
and flowers better the following year, and you get the
benefit of the exceedingly fragrant blossoms. For a few
hours the whole of a London house smells sweeter for its
presence. Its perfume is peculiar and not quite like
anything else I know. The common lilac sort alone
seems easy to grow—at least, the white one F-save tried
has died; but then one must always say in gardening,
‘That is probably my fault; I must try again.’ No
garden, however small, ought to be without this plant.
lt likes peat and moisture, but is not particular.

Yesterday I paid a visit to the Horticultural College
at Swanley, with its branch for women students. It
immediately struck me as quite possible that a new

40 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

employment may be developed for women of small means
out of the modern increased taste for gardening. In
many of the suburban districts the dulness of the small
plots of ground in front of the houses is entirely owing to
the want of education in the neighbouring nurserymen,
whose first idea is always to plant Laurels or other coarse
shrubs. The owners of such villas have little time to
attend to the garden themselves. A lady gardener might
easily undertake to lay out these plots in endless variety,
supplying them throughout the year with flowers and
plants suited to the aspect of each garden. The smaller
the space, the more necessary the knowledge of what is
likely to succeed. Another opening may be found in
cases of larger villas, where single ladies might prefer a
woman head-gardener with a man under her to do the
rougher and heavier work. The maintaining of a garden
and the tending of a greenhouse is work particularly
suited to women of a certain age. A small greenhouse
never can be productive of flowers for picking through
the dull months without a great deal of thought, care,
and knowledge. It seemed to me that the lady pupils
at Swanley were too young to profit by the instruction.
The parents who sent them there evidently looked upon
it as an ordinary school. Surely eighteen or twenty is a
better age than sixteen for a woman to know whether
she really wishes to learn gardening professionally or not.
The employment of women as gardeners is still very
much in embryo, although two of the Swanley pupils
have been accepted at Kew.

March 10th.—The Aucubas fruit well with us, and a
branch of their bright shining green leaves and coral
berries looks exceedingly well in a Japanese wedge and
lasts a long time. We plant the male and female plants
close together, but I am not sure that that is necessary.

March 12th.—Asparagus should be planted now, and,

MARCH 41

to save time, it is best to get two-year-old plants from
France. I recommend Godfroy le Beuf, Horticulteur,
Argenteuil, prés Paris. Dig the ground three spits deep
—that is, the depth of three spades—and put in every-
thing you can that is good: well-rotted farm-manure,
the emptying of cesspools, butchers’ offal, dead animals,
anything to enrich the soil for a long time. Cover up,
cut out one spit deep in trenches, and plant the Asparagus
a good way apart in singlecrowns. They do best planted
in single rows with other crops in between. The goodness
of Asparagus depends on the summer top-growth, so, if the
weather is dry, they must be watered or liquid-manured,
and should never be cut down till late in the autumn.

It is a great mistake, when marking the nurseryman’s
seed list, to order the vegetable described as ‘ giant,’
‘large,’ ‘ perfection,’ etc. Unless your soil is very strong
such vegetables do not grow large, and they do grow
tough and tasteless. This ‘giant’ cultivation has been
brought about to win prizes at shows. Amongst the
delicious vegetables that have been ruined by growing
them too large are Brussels Sprouts. I consider those
sold in the London shops are not worth eating, they are
so coarse; but one can get the seeds of old-fashioned
small kinds. These are far sweeter, nicer, and prettier,
either for putting into soup, for boiling and frying after-
wards in butter, or for boiling quite plainly in the ordinary
English way. They are also far more delicate for a
purée, which is an excellent way of dressing them. If
fried and put on buttered toast, they make a very nice
second-course vegetable in winter.

Do other housekeepers ever wonder why we are con-
demned invariably to eat Whitings with their tails in
their mouths and always skinned? One of the reasons is
that small Haddocks are constantly sold by fishmongers
for the rarer Whiting ; and if skinned, they are not so easy

42 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

to recognise. Try Whitings sometimes as they are eaten
in Paris—lay them flat, not curled nor skinned, and cook
them in a deep dish with butter or parsley. Squeeze
lemon into them, and serve with brown bread and butter.
They can also be fried in the usual way, only not curled.
I think your male kind will approve of the change.

March 15th.—I find that this is the best time for
sowing annuals that have to be sown in place. If sown
later, they never do so well. Poppies, Love-in-the-Mist,
Mignonette, Sweet Sultans, Bartonia aurea, ete. This
latter is a very effective annual. It must be sown in a
large clump and well thinned out, which is the secret of
most annuals. Twice a year, about March 15th and
September 15th, I sow together broadcast Love-in-the-
Mist and Gypsophila gracilis. They seem to support
each other, and fixing a day for the sowing prevents one
from forgetting.

In the old convent gardens Calvary Clover was sup-
posed not to grow unless sown on Good Friday. It is
a curious little annual, with a blood-red spot on each leaf,
and the seed-pod is surrounded by a case which pulls
out, or rather unwinds, into a miniature crown of thorns.
A friend has asked me what she should plant on the
front of a lovely old house facing south. It now has on
it at one end Ivy and on the other an old Wistaria. My
first advice is take away the Ivy ; the place is too good for
it, and it hides the beautiful old brickwork. An old
Wistaria is quite lovely if part or all of it is dragged away
from the house and trained over wooden posts, either in
front of a window or a door, so as to form a kind of
pergola. Until this is done, or it is grown as they do
it in Japan—namely, as a standard, with its branches
spread and supported all around, and you stand beneath
it—you have no idea of the joy that is to be got out of a
Wistaria, with its beautiful lilac blooms hanging from the

MARCH 43

bare and twisted branches above your head and the blue
sky behind them. The whole effect is indeed different
and very superior to that of seeing the blooms hanging
straight and flat from branches nailed close to the wall.
Unless it is protected from the north and east, it is of
course more liable, in unfavourable springs, to have its
blooms injured by late frosts. The plant itself, I believe,
is absolutely hardy.

The creepers I recommended to plant on a south
front are as follows :—

Magnolia grandiflora—the roots must be pulled
about, not cut, and manured in the autumn for the first
few years after planting, to make it grow quickly; a
Yellow Banksia, single if possible, but they are not easy
to get; an early yellow Dutch Honeysuckle; a Pyrus
japonica ; Chimonanthus fragrans, now called Calyc-
anthus precoz ; a Réve d Or Rose; a La Marque Rose
(no house is perfect without one) ; a few Clematises, which
in non-chalky soils must have chalk and lime or brick-
rubbish put to their roots, not manure ; Choisya ternata,
a low-growing shrub, wherever there is room between the
other plants; a Maréchal Niel Rose. Forsythia suspensa,
Jasminum nudiflorum, Clematis montana, and late Dutch
Honeysuckle will all do on the east and west sides of a
house as well as on the south. Two other things that
would grow on the south wall are Bignomia radicans and
Garrya elliptica, a charming evergreen with fascinating
catkins, which form in January. The male or pollen-
bearing plant is the handsomest.

This list I actually made in the autumn, which is
really the best time for planting; but there is often so
much to do then that planting is apt to get postponed, and
rather than lose a whole year, spring planting is quite
worth trying. In damp soils I really believe it answers
best. In dry soils, or where a plant is likely to be robbed

44 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

by the roots of neighbouring shrubs, or by old-established
climbers, it is not a bad plan to sink in the ground an old
tub or half-cask, or even an old tin footbath with the
bottom knocked out. Then fill it with the best soil, and
put in your plant; it will benefit more in this way from
watering in dry weather. There is nothing so disappoint-
ing as to lose a plant in spring, as that means the loss of
a whole year.

Having given the above list, which is pretty well as
large as any moderate-sized house would hold, I may as
well add some further names to choose from, all of which
are worth growing. Magnolia purpurea, M. stellata, and
M. conspicua may all be grown against walls, or planted
in sheltered situations as shrubs. Yellow Jasmine (not
nudiflorum) in favourable situations does well. Crategus
pyracantha lelandi is the best of the Pyracanthuses—I
believe, an invaluable shrub. If well pruned, it berries so
brilliantly that where people only inhabit their houses in
late autumn it is perhaps one of the most satisfactory
plants that can be planted. I know one large red house
which is covered all round up to a certain height with this
plant, and the effect is very decorative, though to have a
house entirely covered with only one species of plant is
very dull from a gardener’s point of view. Unless care-
fully cut back and pruned early in the winter, it never
flowers and berries well, but forms a dense mass of dark-
green leaves.

Cotoneasters, various, are useful much in the same
way, and, I think, endure better very dry situations.
Forsythia fortunei and other varieties. Pyrus japonica,
now called Cydonia, various shades (this is one of the
most precious and invaluable of the early flowering shrubs,
and deserves the best places to be found on warm walls).
Ceanothus grandiflorus (Gloire de Versailles) is the
largest flowering variety, I believe, and a pretty pale-blue

MARCH 45

colour, flowering in July, which is always valuable. C.
ceruleus is a beautiful dark-blue colour; it flowers
earlier, and is not so hardy. Cercis, or common Judas
Tree, and Buddleta globosa both look well on walls where
there is room. Vitis coigneti@ is a very handsome rapid
erower, and covers quickly a barn, a roof, or a dead tree.
The claret-coloured Vine, with its little bunches of black
grapes, is very effective. The grapes are used in France
and Germany for darkening the colour of wine. Abelia
rupestris, a lovely little, rather tender shrub, would grow
admirably against low greenhouse walls. Why are such
spots generally left quite empty by gardeners in large
places? The single white McCartney Rose would do
well in a similar situation, and for those who are in the
country in June it is well worth a place. Aimée Vibert,
Glotre des Rosemaines, and Fallenberg are delightful Roses
for house or pergola. Sweet Verbena (Aloysia citriodora)—
Why, oh! why, is this little shrub, which everyone is so
fond of, grown so little out of doors? Practically, with a
little care, its roots are quite hardy, as in the very severe
winter of two years ago only one of mine, out of five or
six plants, was killed. It requires nothing but planting
out late in May, watering, and not picking at first, as the
growth of the shoots makes the roots grow. It may be
picked in early autumn as much ag you like, but the
summer growth should not be cut down to the ground
till the following spring. It is the easiest plant possible
to strike in spring, and there should be plants of it
planted in greenhouses, others grown in pots, and brought
on in stoves in spring; but nearly all gardeners are satisfied
with one little plant of it in a pot, unless they are urged
to increase it. Mock Orange (Philadelphus grandiflorus)
looks very well against a warm wall in July, but should
not be nailed in too tight. Prptanthus nepalensis on a
warm wall is admirable, but rare ; I have only seen it once.

46 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Schizophragma hydrangeoides is a good wall-plant. For
those who can get it to do on a half-shaded wall, is there
any greater joy to the south country gardener than the
Tropeolum speciosum ? There is an illustration of it in
the ‘English Flower Garden’ (Flame Nasturtium), where
it is depicted growing up strings. I think, however, it
looks better if grown over some light creeper, Jasmine
especially. It wants peat and moisture, and, above all, it
must be in a place the spade or fork never reaches, as its
thin little creeping white roots are easily disturbed, and
even mistaken for a weed and thrown away.

March 22nd.—Such a lovely spring day, in spite of its
cold wind; it makes me long to be sixteen miles away in
my little garden. Even here in London great pure white
stately clouds are sailing over the blue. How lucky lam
to be going away so soon! I wish it gave half as much
pleasure to the rest of the family as it does to me; but
one of the few advantages of old age is that we may be
innocently selfish. A day like this makes me think of a
little poem that appeared in the Spectator twenty years
ago. It was written by a young clergyman’s wife, who
worked hard amidst the sordid blackness of a manufactur-
ing town on the banks of the Tyne. My young friends
will say, ‘How morbid are Aunt T.’s quotations!’ It is
perhaps true; but all bright, lovable, sympathetic souls
had a touch of morbidness in the days that are gone, and
these ‘ Notes’ have no meaning at all unless I try to give
out in them the impressions received during forty years.

THE POET IN THE CITY

The poet stood in the sombre town,
And spoke to his heart and said :

‘O weary prison, devised by man!
O seasonless place and dead !’

His heart was sad, for afar he heard
The sound of the spring’s light tread.

MARCH 47

He thought he saw in the pearly East
The pale March sun arise ;

The happy housewife beneath the thatch,
With hand above her eyes,

Look out to the cawing rooks, that built
So near to the quiet skies.

Out of the smoke and noise and sin
The heart of the poet cried :

‘O God! but to be Thy labourer there,
On the gentle hill’s green side—

To leave the struggle of want and wealth,
And the battle of lust and pride!’

He bent his ear, and he heard afar
The growing of tender things,

And his heart broke forth with the travailing earth
And shook with tremulous wings

Of sweet brown birds that had never known
The dirge of the city’s sins.

And later, when all the earth was green
As the garden of the Lord—

Primroses opening their innocent faces,
Cowslips scattered abroad,

Blue-bells mimicking summer skies,
And the song of the thrush out-poured—

The changeless days were so sad to him
That the poet’s heart beat strong,

And he struggled as some poor cagéd lark,
And he eried, ‘ How long—how long ?

I have missed a spring I can never see,
And the singing of birds is gone.’

But when the time of the roses came
And the nightingale hushed her lay,

The poet, still in the dusty town,
Went quietly on his way—

A poorer poet by just one spring,
And a richer man by one suffering.

I must begin to tell you about my old garden books,
and how I first came to know about them, and then to

48 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

collect them. Until lately I was absolutely ignorant of
their existence, and had never seen an illustrated flower
book of the last century. About fifteen years ago I was
living in London, with apparently small prospect of ever
living in the country again, or of ever possessing a
garden of my own. When ‘A Year in a Lancashire
Garden,’ by Henry A. Bright, was published in 1879, the
book charmed me, and I thought it simple, unaffected,
and original. I had not then seen Dr. Forbes Watson’s
delightful little book, ‘ Flowers and Gardens,’ alluded to
by Henry Bright. ‘A Year ina Lancashire Garden’ has
been much imitated, but, to my mind, none of the
imitations possess the charm of the original. It is a
fascinating chat about a garden to read in a town and
dream over as I did. It revived in me, almost to
longing, the old wish to have a garden, and I resolved,
if it were ever realised, that every plant named by
Henry Bright I would get and try to grow. This I
literally carried out when I came to live in Surrey. His
joys have been my joys, and his failures have some-
times been mine too. In the ‘ Lancashire Garden’ I
was delighted to find a sentence which exactly expresses
an opinion I had long held, but never met with in words
before. As I agree with it even more strongly now than
IT did then, it is well I should quote it here, for the evil it
denounces exists still, not only in England, but even
more in several countries I have visited abroad: ‘ For
the ordinary bedding-out of ordinary gardens I have a
real contempt. It is at once gaudy and monotonous.
A garden is left bare for eight months in the year, that
for the four hottest months there shall be a blaze of the
hottest colours. The same combination of the same
flowers appear wherever you go—Calceolarias, Verbenas,
and Zonal Pelargoniums, with a border of Pyrethrums
or Cerastiums; and that is about all. There is no

a

MARCH 49

thought and no imagination.’ Yet twenty years ago this
sort of garden was like Tory politics, or Church and
State, and seemed to represent all that was considered
respectable and desirable. I shall never forget the
bombshell I seemed to fling into a family circle when I
injudiciously and vehemently said that I hated parks and
bedded-out gardens.

In Mr. Bright’s book I first saw the mention of
Curtis’s ‘Botanical Magazine,’ and afterwards came
across a few stray illustrations out of it. Many of these
old gardening books were, I fear, cut up and sold for
screens and scrap-books when there was no sale for
the complete works. I was much struck with the
beauty and delicacy of these hand-coloured flower plates,
and so began my first interest in old flower books,
which has led by degrees to my present collection. At
one time I thought of giving some account of the
Herbals and botanical works at the library of the
South Kensington Natural History Museum, where
there is a very fine collection, which begins with the
early Herbals and includes botany and gardening
books. This, however, proved to be too ambitious
a work; but a short account of my own books may
be of some interest, for these, though far from being
a large collection, extend over nearly three hundred
years. The knowledge of the very existence of these
beautifully illustrated Herbals and old gardening books
is even now limited, though they are within reach of
everybody at the Natural History Museum. Probably
the reason why these books so suddenly fell out of all
knowledge is owing to the letterpress, which is often in
Latin, having, for one reason or another, become obsolete.
No one now consults Herbals medically, or goes to
old books for botanical instruction.

Ki

50 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

I will arrange the account of my books in chronological
order, according to the date of their publication :—

1614. ‘Hortus Floridus, by Rembertus Dodonzus
and Carolus Clusius.’ This is the earliest gardening
book I possess. It was printed in Amsterdam, and is a
real representation of cultivated garden flowers, not a
Herbal in any sense. It has a frontispiece with the
portraits of the two authors, which was common enough
in the old Dutch books of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. Jupiter and Diana are represented on either
side of the page, with wreaths of flowers hung along the
tcp, and plants growing in pots placed at the bottom.
The title of the book is in the centre. The plates
are not coloured, but the flowers are very well drawn.
There are two charming pictures of Dutch gardens sur-
rounded by an arched wall with creepers, straight paths,
and beds edged with box. In one a woman is gathering
Tulips, dressed in the quaint fashion of the period, and a
man is leaning over a wooden or stone railing looking at
her. The number and variety of exotic flowers figured
in the book is surprising. Besides all the ordinary
spring bulbs which are now grown, there are Sun-
flowers, called Indian Golden Suns (Helianthuses, of
course, all came from America), Cannas, Marvels of Peru
(called Merveille d’Inde a diverses couleurs), Nicotiana,
etc. Insects are introduced on several of the plates, and
in one or two instances mice are feeding on the bulbs
which lie on the ground. The African Agapanthus is
called Narcissus marinus exoticus. Both the Helle-
bores are here, and all the flowers are so well drawn as
to be perfectly recognisable. The book is an oblong
shape, bound in unstiffened white parchment. It is well
preserved, though some Philistine lady of the last century
has, with patient industry, pricked some of the flowers
and insects all round for the purpose of taking the out-

MARCH 51

lines for needlework. The book historically is certainly
interesting. The text is in Latin, but even the unlearned
reader is able to realise how horticulturally perfect may
have been the gardens of Europe where Louis XIII. of
France played as a child, and the number and richness
of the flowers which our Prince Charles of Wales (his
future brother-in-law) may have gazed at from his palace
windows or enjoyed when gathered. This, perhaps,
helped to nourish the great taste for art which Charles I.,
more than all our other kings, developed later in life.
1629. I have both the Parkinsons. The first pub-
lished of the two has the following curious descriptive
inscription written on a shield at the bottom of the title-

page :—

PARADISI IN SOLE
Parapisus TERRESTRIS.

A GARDEN OF ALL SORTS OF PLEASANT FLOWERS WHICH OUR
ENGLISH AYRE WILL PERMITT TO BE NOURSED UP:
WITH
A KitcHEN GARDEN OF ALL MANNER OF HERBES, RAVIES, AND FRUITES
FOR MEATE OR SAUSE USED WITH US,

AND
An ORCHARD OF ALL SORTS OF FRUIT-BEARING TREES
AND SHRUBBS FIT FOR OUR Lanp,

TOGETHER
WITH THE RIGHT ORDERINGE, PLANTING, AND PRESARVING
OF THEM, AND THEIR USES AND VERTUES.
CoLLECTED BY JOHN PARKINSON,

APoTHECARY OF LonDoN.

The picture on the title-page portrays the Garden
of Eden with Adam and Eve tending the flowers.
The outward edge is rimmed with spikes representing

the sun’s rays. At the top is the eye of Providence, and
E2

52 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

on each side a cherub symbolising the winds. In the
centre of the garden is the famous Vegetable Lamb,
supposed to be half animal and half plant. This curious
myth of the Middle Ages lingered on, and was actually
discussed as a matter of faith by scientific men towards
the end of the eighteenth century. The Borametz, or
Scythian Lamb, or Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, as
described by travellers, appears in both the frontispieces
of Parkinson’s books. When studying the flower books
at the South Kensington Museum, I felt curious
about this tradition, which the Church of the Middle
Ages took up, making it a matter of faith that the
Vegetable Lamb grew in Paradise and was in some
mysterious way typical of the Christian Lamb. My brain
was soon cleared by finding at the Museum a book
written by Mr. Henry Lee, and published as late as 1887,
giving an excellent account of the whole tradition. This
book, called ‘The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary,’ contains
several pictures, reproduced from old books, of the lamb.
Some represent it growing, as Parkinson has it, on a stem,
from which it was supposed to eat the grass as far as it
could reach and then die. Another picture is of a tree
with large cocoons, which burst open and display a lamb.
The belief seems to have been that the lamb was at the
same time both a true animal and a living plant. Mr. Lee
carefully goes through the whole tradition, quoting all
the known sources from which it arose. According to
him, about the middle of the seventeenth century very
little belief in the story of the Scythian Lamb remained
among men of letters, although it continued to be a subject
of discussion and research for at least a hundred and
fifty years later. He sums up his explanation with the
following sentence :—‘ Tracing the growth and transition
of this story of the lamb-plant from a truthful rumour of
a curious fact into a detailed history of an absurd fiction,

MARCH 53

I have no doubt whatever that it originated in early
descriptions of the cotton plant, and the introduction of
cotton from India into Western Asia and the adjoining
parts of Eastern Europe.’ All this seems so simple as
explained by Mr. Lee, how the early travellers came back
and said, ‘ In the far East there is a tree on which grows
the most beautiful fine wool, and the natives weave their
garments of it.’ The Western mind could conceive of no
wool except that of a lamb; in this way the fiction grew,
and was passed on from one writer to another. In a
poem by Erasmus Darwin, published in 1781, of which
more hereafter, it is alluded to as a plant that grew on
the steppes of the Volga in the following terms :—

H’en round the Pole the flames of love aspire,
And icy bosoms feel the sacred fire.

Cradled in snow and fanned by Arctic air,
Shines, gentle Borametz, thy golden hair ;
Rooted in earth, each cloven foot descends,

And round and round her flexile neck she bends,
Crops the grey coral moss and hoary thyme

Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime;
Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam,
And seems to bleat—a ‘ vegetable lamb.’

Curiously enough, when in Norway last year, I came
across an old wooden chair, and the back was carved in
a way that seems to me conclusively to represent this
old tradition. The design is a lamb enclosed in a circular
cocoon, surrounded by branches and leaves. This chair
I have now.

In the ‘ Nineteenth Century’ of January 1880, there
appeared a very interesting article on Parkinson’s
‘Paradisi in Sole,’ called ‘ Old-fashioned Gardening,’ by
Mrs. Kegan Paul. She describes the title-page, and says,
‘ The tree of knowledge, its fruit still unplucked by Adam,
appears in the centre of the plate.’ I thought we were

54 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

told that Adam never did pick it, but received it from the
hand of Eve? But this is a trifling criticism on a useful
and original article. Mrs. Paul makes a great many
delightful quotations from Parkinson, and says that he is
‘not content to deny that single flowers can be trans-
formed into double “by the observation of the change of
the Moone, the constellations or conjunctions of Planets
or some other Starres or celestial bodies.’’ Parkinson
holds that such transformation could not be effected by
the art of man.’ In her condemnation of bedding-out
and in her admiration of the old-fashioned English
garden, read by the light of these sixteen years, Mrs.
Paul’s article is almost prophetic. The ‘ Paradisiin Sole’
is essentially a book describing a garden of ‘ pleasant
flowers’ and with many interesting details about their
cultivation. There is no allusion to medical matter at
all, though, as usual, the botanist was a doctor. The
woodcuts are rather coarser and rougher than in the
Dutch book before described, but they are fairly drawn
and generally like Nature. Ina little book by Mrs. Ewing,
called ‘Mary’s Meadow,’ the author speaks a good deal
of this book of Parkinson’s, and in a footnote she alludes
to the fact that the title is an absurd play upon words,
after the fashion of Parkinson’s day. Paradise is
originally an Eastern word, meaning a park or pleasure
ground. Paradisi in sole Paradisus terrestris means
Park-in-son’s Earthly Paradise !

1640. We now come to Parkinson’s second book,
‘The Theatre of Plants, or an Universal and Complete
Herbal. Composed by John Parkinson, Apothecary of
London and the King’s Herbarist —(‘the King’ being
Charles I., at the time just preceding his execution).
The frontispiece is quite as curious in its way as the
one in the ‘Paradisi in Sole.’ It has a portrait of old
Parkinson in a skull-cap, looking very wise and holding

MARCH ie

a flower that looks like a Gaillardia. In the middle of
the page is the title, with Adam on one side, dressed in
the skin of a beast and holding a very fine spade, like the
spades used in France to this day. This, I imagine,
represents Toil, while Wisdom is personified on the other
side by Solomon. He is clad in the conventional dress
of the kings of the Middle Ages—a long cloak, a cape of
ermine, a spiked crown, a sceptre, bare legs, and a pair of
Roman sandals. At the top of the page is the eye of
God with a Hebrew word written below it. At the four
corners are four female figures representing Europe,
Asia, Africa, and America. Hurope, only, is in a chariot
drawn by a pair of horses. Asia, riding a rhinoceros,
wears a very short skirt and curious, pointed, curled shoes,
not unlike the slippers still worn in Turkey, and a stiff
headdress that resembles those used by women in the
thirteenth century. Africa has no clothes, only a hat,
and rides a zebra. America has a bow and arrow, and
rides, also without clothes, a curious long-eared sheep.
These ladies are surrounded by the vegetation supposed
to be typical of each country. Among other plants, Asia
has again the Vegetable Lamb before described, and
Asia, not America, has the Indian Corn (Maize), which,
I believe, is supposed to be as exclusively indigenous to
America as Tobacco is. It appears to have been entirely
unknown to the Old World, and has never been found with
other corn in any of the old tombs, or alluded to in the
classics. Its cultivation must have spread very quickly,
and it is known all over the South of Europe as Blé
de Turquie to this day. Turquie was the term used
in the Middle Ages for describing anything foreign.
When the early discoverers of Canada went up the
St. Lawrence and reached the rapids, which still bear
the name of La Chine rapids, they thought they had
reached the China seas and joined the continent of Asia,

56 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

It is, therefore, curious to note that Parkinson figures an
American plant amongst the vegetation of Asia. The
old Red Indian natives of North America used to sow the
Maize with a fish on either side of the seed to propitiate
their gods. No wonder it grew luxuriantly. Africa has
in the foreground what appears to be a Stapelia, Aloes,
and Date-palms. America has Cactuses, Pineapples, and
the large Sunflower, being the vegetation rather of South
than North America. As representing the geographical
knowledge and art notions of the day, it is decidedly an
interesting title-page. The woodcuts throughout the
book are of the whole plant, root and all; but they are
without much character, all about the same size, and less
well-drawn than the flowers in the ‘Paradisi.’ The
medical properties of the plants are described at length
and with much detail, and are really curious. I wonder
if our complicated prescriptions and remedies will some
day sink to the level which the science of herbs has
reached to-day. It would not be so very surprising if this
should happen, considering how much the faith put in
the modern drugs resembles the belief in cures as
described in these old Herbals. At the Museum there is
a great collection of Herbals of all nationalities, especially
German. They are all much of the same kind, and
illustrated in the same way as this one of Parkinson’s,
leading one to conjecture that the medical science
throughout Europe at this time was about on a
level.

1633. ‘The Herbal or General Historie of Plants
gathered by John Gerarde, of London, Master in Chirur-
gerie.’ This edition of Gerarde’s Herbal appeared between
the publication of Parkinson’s two books just described,
but it is areprint of an earlier edition, very much enlarged
and amended by Thomas Johnson, citizen and apothecary.
The frontispiece is stately and serious. The title is on a

MARCH 57

shield in the middle, with a column on each side dividing
it from two draped figures, Theophrastus on the left and
Dioscorides on the right. Above these two figures, but
divided from them by a line, are Ceres and Pomona, both
fully draped. Ceres has a sheaf of wheat in her arms, and
behind her grows the Indian corn. A ploughed field is
spread out in the distance on her left. In the middle,
between these figures, are growing plants and flowers and
an orchard. At the bottom of the page is a fine portrait
of Gerarde, holding a flower I do not recognise. He is
dressed in the correct costume and ruffle of Charles I.
On each side of him the spaces are filled by two vases
of different shape and design, in which are various
flowers arranged in a stiff and formal manner, typical of
flower arrangements in that time and long after, as we
see depicted by art in this and other countries. Nowhere
on the page does there appear any representation of the
Vegetable Lamb, nor can I find any reference to it in the
text. On the other hand, however, there is an elaborate
allusion to what Mr. Lee describes in his book on the
Vegetable Lamb, before mentioned, as the companion
superstition of the Barnacle Geese. Gerarde gives a most
interesting and detailed account—too long, alas! for me to
quote—of having seen the barnacles and watched their
development into tree-geese. He corroborates his own
observation by quoting the like experience of others. He
also states in all gravity that ‘the shells wherein is bred
the barnacle are taken up in a small island adjoining to
Lancashire, half a mile from the mainland, called the
Pile of Foulders.’ Mr. Lee says:—‘The growth and
development of the story of “the Scythian Lamb” from
the similarity of appearance of two really different objects
may be best explained by comparing it with another
natural-history myth which ran curiously parallel to it.
T allude to the fable that Sir John Mandeville tells us he

58 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

related to his Tartar acquaintances, viz., that of the
“Barnacle Geese,’ which has never been surpassed as a
specimen of ignorant credulity and persistent error.

‘From the twelfth to the end of the seventeenth cen-
tury it was implicitly and almost universally believed that
in the western islands of Scotland certain geese, of which
the nesting-places were never found, instead of being
hatched from eggs, like other birds, were bred from
“shell-fish ”’ which grew on trees. Upon the shores
where these geese abounded, pieces of timber and old
trunks of trees covered with barnacles were often seen,
which had been stranded by the sea. From between the
partly opened shells of the barnacles protruded their
plumose cirrhi, which in some degree resemble the
feathers of a bird. . Hence arose the belief that they con-
tained real birds. The fishermen persuaded themselves
that these birds within the shells were the geese whose
origin they had been previously unable to discover, and
that they were thus bred, instead of being hatched, like
other birds, from eggs.’ Mr. Lee states that the old
botanist Gerarde had, in 1597, the audacity to assert that
he had witnessed the transformation of the shell-fish into
geese. What Gerarde states, as I read it, is that some-
thing like a bird fell out of the shell into the sea, ‘ where
it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a fowle bigger than
a mallard and lesser than a goose.’ He distinctly says
that if it fell on the ground it died.

The drawing of the plants throughout Gerarde’s book
is more delicate and finished than in Parkinson’s.

1691. I have a little gardener’s almanack of this date.
My copy is the ‘8th edition, and has many useful
additions.’ This book is without illustrations except
for a frontispiece of a young man and young woman
admiring a garden through a doorway. The woman is
attended by a page, who is holding a modern-looking sun-

MARCH 59

shade. This is curious, as umbrellas did not, I believe,
come into general use till very much later.

1693. Evelyn publishes his translation of ‘The Com-
pleat Gard’ner, written by the famous Monsieur de la
Quintinye, Chief Director of all the Gardens of the
French King.’ They must have been wonderful gardens,
those of Louis XIV. ; and one of the most beautiful hand-
coloured flower books in the library of the museum at
South Kensington was executed by order of the king for
Madame de Montespan. This translation of Evelyn’s
has some interesting little illustrations of gardens, plans
of beds, fruit-trees, pruning, &c. The frontispiece is a
portrait of Evelyn in a hideous wig of the day.

1710. I have an English Herbal by William Salmon,
doctor to Queen Anne. It contains a most fulsome
dedication to the queen. The type of man who even in
that century was capable of publishing such an effusion
would be very likely, I think, to have caused the death of
all Queen Anne’s children, while quite convinced all the
time that they died solely by the will of Almighty God.
What a curious person that Queen Anne must have been,
who allowed the great category of persecuting laws against
the Catholics in Ireland to be framed in her reign, and
whom Horace Walpole called ‘Goody Anne, the wet-
nurse of the Church’! The book is purely medical, and is
supposed to be principally written for the use of doctors,
but it describes flowering garden plants as well as the
wild ones. It has a large, coarsely executed frontispiece,
mostly torn out in my copy. The drawings of the plants
show no artistic improvement over Parkinson’s, but are
much in the same style.

1739. ‘ New Improvements of Planting and Gardening,
both Phylosophical and Practical, by Richard Bradley.’
This is a small book with rather good copper-plates, and
interesting as showing the researches and ideas of an

60 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

intelligent man just previous to the illuminating of botany
through the works of Linnzeus, who in 1739 was only
thirty-two. He knew that earthworms were hermaphro-
dites, but from a text of Scripture he was convinced that
plants have their seeds in themselves, and that every
plant contained in itself male and female powers. The
common Aucuba, so long a puzzle to botanists, only
received its green-leaved pollen-bearing mate from Japan
towards the middle of this century. Before that it was
only propagated by cuttings, and never bore any red
berries. The gardening books of the last century are full
of useful hints, as gardening was then practised and
written about by men of the highest education ; and very
often this was done solely for botanical and what they
called ‘ philosophical’ reasons. Sometimes the childish
earnestness of their ignorance concerning facts now
known to every schoolchild accentuates the extraordinary
advance and increased popularising of knowledge since
that day.

1732. ‘Hortus Elthamensis, 4 Johanne Jacobo Dil-
lenio, M.D.’ Two folio volumes published in London,
and interesting as showing the general development of the
improved power of illustrating. The plates are coloured
by hand, and contain many figures of Cape Aloes, Gera-
niums, and other African plants, either depicted with
their roots or as growing out of the ground. The text is
in Latin.

1771. ‘ Uitgezochte Planten, by Christ. Jacob Trew,
Georgius Dionysius Ehret, Joh. Jacob Haid.’ The
characteristic of this large folio is that it begins with
very fine separate portraits of the three authors. One
seems to have been the botanist, one the artist, and one
the engraver. It was brought out at Amsterdam by sub-
scription, aS waS so common with handsome books in
those days. The book begins with a long list of sub-

MARCH 61

seribers. The flower-plates are extremely fine, very
strongly coloured, and as fresh and bright as the day
they were painted, each page being covered with a sheet
of dark-grey thick hand-made paper, such as Turner loved
tosketch upon. One of the things figured is the Japanese
plant, Bocconia cordata (‘ Plumed Poppy,’ Robinson calls
it), which we have been in the habit of thinking a new
plant in our gardens. Many of the plates are inter-
esting and a few remarkable, and the botanical details
of the flowers beautifully drawn, some natural size
and some magnified.

1771. ‘The Flora Londinensis, by William Curtis.’
The first number was brought out by subscription on the
above date. I have the two volumes of the first edition.
It is the handsomes the most artistic, and the best
drawn of any English illustrated botanical books I have
seen. I do not know who was the artist, but I imagine
not Curtis himself. These plates have some of the
qualities of Jacquin’s drawings, of which more hereafter.
How much they were in communication, a not uncommon
custom of the time, I do not know. Curtis’s first book
was a translation of Linnzus’s, with the title of ‘An
Introduction to the Knowledge of Insects.’

In 1773 Curtis was appointed lecturer of the Chelsea
Garden. The plates of ‘ The Flora Londinensis’ are lovely
large folio, and most delicately drawn and tinted. The
text is in English, and is descriptive of the wild flowers
and plants growing round London. No doubt the book
was suggested to Curtis by Vaillant’s ‘Catalogue of Plants
in the Environs of Paris.’ It retains strongly the Herbal
character, and the medical details of diseases are weird
and extraordinary. The decision and particularity of

the assurance that every disease to which flesh is heir
will be relieved by the use of certain plants are quite
surprising. The place where the innocent little wild

62 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

plants are picked is always named, and it is pathetic
to think of the growth of the city, and how the places
mentioned are now densely covered with buildings and
streets. The second edition, in five or six volumes,
finished by Dr. Hooker, is far the more valuable and
complete. Curtis began his ‘Botanical Magazine, or
Flower Garden Displayed’ in 1778. I have the first
sixty-seven volumes of this lovely and best known of all
the Old English gardening publications. It is purely
horticultural. Every alternate page is an illustration,
with the letterpress on the opposite side describing the
nature of the plant, the country from which it comes,
and its cultivation here. With the same truthful accuracy
with which he tells the home of the wild plant, he names
the nurseryman or amateur who has flowered the exotic.
The best drawings by far are in the early numbers, and
were executed by Sowerby. The two who succeeded
him were Sydenham Edwards and Dr. Hooker. Spode,
the man who perfected the process of mixing bone-dust
into the paste used for china in the early part of this
century, used these illustrations a good deal for his pretty
china dinner and dessert services, with the names of the
flowers or plants marked at the back of the dishes.

1791. ‘The Loves of the Plants, in two parts: The
Botanic Garden and the Economy of Vegetation. A Poem
by Erasmus Darwin,’ seems to me one of the real
curiosities of literature. It is unique, so far as I know,
in its sincere desire to clothe the latest science in the
garb of the Muse. The frontispiece, by Fuseli, is a
drawing most characteristic of that artist and full of all
his affectations. flora, attired by the elements, is a
striking example of the fashion and bad taste of the day,
and yet it is full of ingenuity and skill in drawing. This
frontispiece is well worth, by itself, the price I gave for
the whole volume. Another print in the book, by the

MARCH 63

same artist, is called ‘The Fertilisation of Egypt,’ mean-
ing, of course, the rising of the Nile. A huge unclothed
man with a dog’s head is praying to the star Sirius.
A note explains this by saying ‘the Abbé La Pluche
observes that as Sirius, or the Dog-star, rose at the time
of the commencement of the flood, its rising was watched
by the Astronomers and notice given of the approach of
the inundation by hanging the figure of Anubis, which
was that of a man with a dog’s head, in all the Egyptian
temples.’ Erasmus Darwin’s mind was evidently fasci-
nated, as was common with all the scientific men of the
day, by the fertilisation of plants. In one of his notes he
says, ‘ The vegetable passion of love is agreeably seen in
the flower of the Parnassia (Grass of Parnassus), in which
the males alternately approach and recede from the female’
(a practice not wholly unknown to many beside the
innocent Parnassia), ‘and in the flower of Nigella.’ We
call it now Love-in-the-Mist, ‘in which the tall females
bend down to their dwarf husbands’ (a picture some-
times seen in modern drawing-rooms). Darwin goes on
to say, ‘I was surprised this morning to observe, amongst
Sir Brooke Boothby’s valuable collection of plants at
Ashbourne, the manifest adultery of several females of
the plant Collinsoma, who had bent themselves into
contact with the males of the same plant in their vicinity,
neglectful of their own.’ The plate and note of Gloriosa
superba I have mentioned elsewhere. As an outcome of
the extraordinary effect of Linnzus’s work on thinking
minds at the end of the last century, the book is of great
interest, though we should not call it poetry in the modern
sense. Erasmus Darwin was the grandfather of our
great Darwin, who did for the middle of this century so
much more than even Linnzeus did for the end of the last.

1778. ‘Miscellanea Austriaca, by Nicolai Josephi
Jacquin. This is the earliest Jacquin book that I have.

64 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

It is in two small volumes of note-books, with all the
illustrations at the end. The text is in Latin; but this is
of no consequence, as Jacquin’s books are all botanical,
not horticultural, and their botany is obsolete. This
remarkable man, Nicholas Joseph Jacquin, whose in-
dustry must have been untiring, was born at Leyden in
1727, and educated there at the University for the medical
profession. This meant in those days the highest
botanical education which could be obtained. He went to
Vienna, at the suggestion of a friend, to practise medicine,
but when there his great botanical knowledge brought
him to the notice of Francis I. This emperor seems to
have been a great patron of botany and gardening, the
fashionable combination of the day. He sent Jacquin to
the West Indies for six years to collect plants for the
Schénbrunn Gardens, paying his expenses. Jacquin did
not die till 1817, leaving an unfinished work, ‘ Ecloga
Plantarum Rariorum,’ the only one of Jacquin’s books
that has a German as well as a Latin text. The second
volume was not published till 1844, by Edouardus Fenzl,
long after Jacquin’s death. The colour and painting are
very inferior to Jacquin’s work. Towards the end of the
last century, in the midst of wars and revolutions, the
crumbling of old methods of government and the change
of social customs, an extraordinary band of able men all
over Europe were quietly working in concert and with
constant communication. Their object was to increase
the knowledge of the science of botany by reproducing,
with the greatest botanical exactness of detail, the plants
imported from all parts of the world as they flowered in
Europe for the first time in the various greenhouses and
stoves. It is remarkable that the books of this period,
even of different countries, very rarely illustrate the same
plants. The botanical curiosity, the feeling of something
new, rare, and not fully understood, which is such an

MARCH 65

incentive to the human mind, has gone for ever as far
as this kind of simple botany is concerned. Of these
highly gifted men, who worked on lines which can no
more be repeated than the missals of the sixteenth
century in Italy, Jacquin, no doubt, was the most artist-
ically interesting. No one who has not seen his works
can realise the beauty, the delicacy, the truth, the detail
to which flower-painting can be brought. None of the
other flower-painters that I know show anything like the
- same talent of throwing the flower on to the paper with
endless variety, and of adapting the design to the size
and growth of the particular plant. This result seems
produced by his botanical exactness, and not, apparently,
by any intention to make a beautiful picture. No two
pages are ever filled in the same way. This does away
entirely with the ordinary wearisome monotony of turning
over drawings one after the other, with the flower right in
the middle of the page. His books fetch a considerable
price, and are difficult to procure. The one I sometimes
see in English catalogues is in my possession, five volumes
of ‘Collectanea ad Botanicam Chemiam et Historiam
naturalem, 1786.’ My copy was a surplus one at the British
Museum, of which it bears the stamp and date of sale,
1831. The plates maintain their usual excellence and
are nearly all coloured, with a brilliancy that has not
suffered at all from time. Some are of wild flowers,
mosses, Lycopodiums, insects, and serpents. All Jacquin’s
drawings stand out wonderfully on the paper, but there
is no shading, except that the modelling is indicated by a
stronger tone of the same colour ; and the relief and value,
without any tinting of the background, are most effective.
In the case of the bushy little Alpines the plant is spread
out like seaweed and the root drawn, which gives the
whole growth and proportion of the plant.

1793. ‘Oxalis Monographia’ is an exquisite study of

F

66 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

about a hundred Oxalises. Nearly all the plates are
coloured. Most of these delicate little plants with their
bulbous roots come from the Cape of Good Hope. Jacquin
seems to have had a peculiar affection for them, as, besides
this monograph, he constantly figures them in his mis-
cellaneous works. I have often tried to procure his book
on Stapelias, also a large family of Cape plants rather
like small Cactuses, but have never been able to do so,
and have only seen it at the Museum.

1797-1804. ‘Plantarum Rariorum MHorti Cesarei
Schoenbrunnensis.’ These four superb folios, containing
five hundred spotless plates by Jacquin, represent some
of his very finest work. The plates are all coloured, in a
much stronger and more finished way than in his other
books. Some of the plates are folded and larger than the
book, and others extend across the whole width of the
book. As an example of the richness of the plates I
will describe one taken at random, which he ealls Vitis
vulpina. The shoot of the vine starts from a short piece
of stronger branch at the very top of the page, and curves
to the bottom, turning up at the end with young leaves
and tendrils. This young shoot has two bunches of the
flower as it appears in spring. Quite at the top, on the
right, is a detached autumn leaf turning red, and drawn
from the back with every vein showing. Half-way down,
on the left, is a bunch of ripe purple grapes ; with one pip,
drawn life-size, at the side. Below this isa single flower,
highly magnified, with a drawing apart showing pistil and
stamen. There are ten life-sized leaves on the branch,
and the whole is contained on an unfolded plate. A short
botanical description of each plant is added in Latin.
The hand-made paper on which these plates are printed
puts to shame all that we now produce. Many of the
plants are named differently from what they are now.
To those who have never seen Jacquin’s works these

MARCH 67

volumes are an absolute revelation. At the same time
his genius will always appeal more to the artistic than to
the scientific mind, although in the biographical notices
of him that I have seen he is only mentioned as a doctor
and a botanist. At the Natural History Museum is a
large and much-valued collection of his letters and original
drawings.

1794. ‘ Thirty-eight Plates with explanations, intended
to illustrate Linnzus’ system of vegetables, and par-
ticularly adapted to the letters on the elements of Botany.
By Thomas Martin, Regius Professor of Botany in the
University of Cambridge.’ These plates are beautifully
drawn, and exemplify very well the careful draughtsman-
ship of a botanist of the day. They are most faithfully
hand coloured, and are only inferior to the best from a
little want of gradation.

1794. I have the ‘Life of Sir Charles Linneus, by
D. H. Stoever, translated from the original German by
Joseph Trapp.’ It is, I believe, the only biography of him
ever written. To this is added a copious list of his works
and a biographical sketch of his sou, whose life is an in-
teresting example of talents shared by a father and son.
The son, who died unmarried at the early age of forty-one,
seems to have been a brilliant and much-loved individual.
Trapp dedicates his translation to the Linnzan Society
of London. It contains a portrait of the elder Linnzus,
a cheerful, bright, up-looking profile, with the curly wig
of the day, and a large branch stuck in his buttonhole, as
was not uncommon in the portraits of botanists. He was
born in 1707, was the son of a Swedish minister, and the
grandson of a peasant. His industry and energy must
have been exceptional, and he chose truth as his guide.
His first book was the ‘ Flora of Lapland, which was
perhaps the reason why that little Northern flower, Linnea
borealis, is the plant that has received his great name.

F2

68 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

He married at twenty-seven, and his father-in-law seems
to have put small faith in his botany, and advised him
to apply himself more exclusively to the theoretical and
practical study of physic. After his marriage he made
money as a doctor in Stockholm, and it is not otherwise
than interesting to know that when attacked with very
severe gout at forty-three, and the doctors who attended
him began to despair of his recovery, he cured himself by
eating nothing but Strawberries for a time. Afterwards
he kept the gout entirely in check by taking a Strawberry
cure every summer. In several ways the book gives an
interesting picture of life in the last century. Linneeus’s
books are characterised by religious sentiment, neverthe-
less they had the misfortune of being considered at Rome
as heretical and materialistic productions. In 1758 they
were inserted in the catalogue of forbidden books ; no one
durst either print or sell them under pain of having every
copy confiscated or publicly burnt. This proceeding
was implicitly condemned during the papacy of the
excellent and truly enlightened Ganganelli, Pope Clement
XIV. Linnzus himself mentions this occurrence in a letter
to the Chevalier Thunberg in the following terms :—‘ The
Pope, who fifteen years ago ordered those of my works
that should be imported into his dominions to be burnt,
has dismissed the Professor of Botany who did not
understand my system, and put another in his place, who
is to give public lectures according to my method and
theory.’

1797. ‘The Botanist’s Repository, by H. Andrews.’
This is a rare book, I believe, and ought to be in ten
quarto volumes. I have only the first eight. It contains
coloured engravings only of new and rare plants, many of
which cannot, I think, have flowered in England, as there
are several Proteas, which are exceedingly difficult of
cultivation under glass. Andrews’ great fondness for

MARCH 69

plants from the Cape of Good Hope makes one almost
think he must have been there—Gladioli, Ixias, and
curious Cape Pelargoniums, which are the parents of all
our greenhouse varieties. On the bottom of the title-
page is a charming little drawing of that humble plant the
Linnea borealis (‘Twin Flower,’ Mr. Robinson calls it),
which I have never yet been lucky enough to flower.
The design represents two little flowering branches raised
on either side like two arms. I feel much drawn to the
man Andrews, who so skilfully placed it there, just a
hundred years ago, to do honour to his great master.
Andrews’ other book is ‘The Heathery, or a Monograph
of the Genus Erica.’ Again I have only the small edition
published in 1804. The folio one is very scarce. This is
a pretty, interesting book, with moderately well-drawn
plates, coloured by hand. The Heaths are such a large
family, and nearly all apparently come from the Cape of
Good Hope. I cannot understand why people who haye
several greenhouses should not grow more of these
charming plants. They require a certain amount of
special treatment, a very cool house and plenty of air. It
seems such a pity that private gardeners only care to
grow the few plants which they can exhibit for competi-
tion—markedly, just now, Orchids and Chrysanthemums.
These Cape Heaths look lovely picked and wedged, or
growing in the greenhouse, and, I should imagine, would
do especially well in houses by the sea. On the frontis-
piece of his book Andrews has a quaint picture of a
greenhouse for growing his Heaths.

Towards the end of the year I will tell you about
those of my books which belong to this century.

70 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

APRIL

Whims of the weather—Spring flowers—The herbaceous nursery—
Love for the garden—A light sprayer - Homely French receipts
—French gardening—The late frosts.

April 2nd.-We came down to our little Surrey garden,
only sixteen miles from London, for good yesterday; and
though the wind be ever so cold and the skies ever so grey,
I yet feel that that which makes going to London worth
while is the joy of coming back again. The ceaseless
interest of a garden of this sort is in the variety, not only
of the plants, but in the actual growth caused by the
different seasons. This year the winter has been very
mild, and dry too, which is unusual—and then came a
very wet March, such as I do not remember since we have
lived in Surrey, these fourteen years. It is really amusing
to watch all that happens consequent on these whims of
the weather; the early and late, the wet and the dry,
all making immense difference in the plants. Some are
successful one year, and some another.

Nothing is more charming just now than the Forsythias.
They are absolutely hardy, but they flower best on walls,
even a north one, as the birds are extremely fond of the
buds and can get at them much better when the plant is
srown as a bush. The birds always seem to be extra-
ordinarily destructive in this garden ; but I see that most
gardeners, in their books, make the same complaint, and
rather apologise to the common-sense of their readers for
cherishing and feeding instead of destroying them. In

APRIL 71

my garden I hang up on the trees, the pump, or shaded
railings, little boxes with part of one side cut out for the
birds to build in, and with lids that lift up for me to have
the pleasure of looking at them. The fact is, birds do
quite as much good as harm, though the harm is the more
apparent ; and who would have a garden without song ?

The Crown Imperials are in full flower. They, like
many other bulbs in this light soil, reproduce themselves
so quickly that they want to be constantly lifted, the
small bulbs taken away and put in a nursery (if you wish
to increase your stock), and the large ones replaced, in a
good bed of manure, where you want them to flower the
following year. It is best, if possible, to do this in June,
when the leaves have died down, but not quite disappeared
so that the place is lost; one can, however, always find
them in the autumn by their strong smell when the earth
is moved beside them.

The orange Crown Imperials do best here, so, of
course, I feel proudest of the pale yellow. Both colours
are unusually good this year. In my youth they were
rather sniffed at and called a cottage plant. I wonder if
anyone who thought them vulgar ever took the trouble to
pick off one of the down-hanging bells and turn it up to
see the six drops of clear water in the six white cups
with black rims? I know nothing prettier or more
curious amongst flowers than this. I have not got the
white one, but must try and get it; I am told it is very
pretty, and so it must be, I should think. The lovely
little Omphalodes verna (‘ Blue-eyed Mary,’ Mr. Robinson
calls it) is in flower under my trees. The soil is too dry
for it to flourish very successfully, and yet it is always
worth growing everywhere. Next year I shall try lifting
it in March and putting it into pots. The great thing
is to remember that it divides and propagates much better
in early spring than in autumn. The graceful, pale grey

72 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

anemone Fobimsomana is doing better this year. Now
that it has taken hold, I hope it may spread.

All the early tulips and some of the later are out;
what delicious things they are! None are better than
Gesneriana greigi and sylvestris. The beautiful Parrot
Tulips will come later. Ormthogalum nutans is a weed
most people dread to get into their borders, and not un-
naturally ; but if put in a place where spreading does no
harm, or planted in grass, where it does not flourish very
much, it is a bulb well worth growing. It blooms better
if divided every two or three years. The flowers are very
lovely when cut, and, like all their tribe, they last well in
water, looking most refined and uncommon, and are es-
pecially good to send to London. I do not make many
remarks here on the lovely family of spring bulbs—Tulips,
Scillas, Hyacinths, Daffodils, and Narcisses—for the same
reason that I passed casually over the forced ones in
February. We can all grow these easily enough by mark-
ing the catalogue and paying the bill. Anybody who
does not understand their cultivation will find every detail
on the subject in the older gardening books, as I have
stated before. Of all the Dutch nurserymen from whom I
have bought bulbs, J.J. Thoolen at Overveen, near Haarlem,
is the cheapest, though I do not say that he is better or
worse than any other. In my experience, all the finer
kinds of bulbs are better for taking up in June or July,
well dried in the sun, and planted again in September.
When they are planted in grass they must, of course, be
left alone to take their chance. Nothing can be more
delightful than the spring bulbs. I grow them in every
way I can—in pots, in beds, in borders, and in the grass.

Besides the Bulbs, the Arums, and the Azaleas, I have
in the little greenhouse next the drawing-room several
very pretty Primula sieboldw: they remain in the frames
in pots during the summer, to die down entirely, and are

APRIL 73

re-potted in the autumn. They are hardy, and will grow
out of doors, but the blooms do not then reach to such
perfection. There is a large box filled with the last of
the Neapolitan Violets and a pan of Saxifraga wallacet,
one of the most effective of the smaller Saxifrages. I
never succeeded with it out of doors till I divided it in
June, planting it in the shade, and in October I replaced
it in the sunny bed for spring flowering. In that way
it can be increased to any amount. This treatment I
pursue with many plants :—Heuchera sanguinea, one of
the most precious of the Canadian flowers, and the
best worth cultivating, especially in small gardens. The
pretty Saxifraga granulata flore pleno disappeared year
after year till treated more or less in this way. In June,
when the leaves die down, the little bulblets are taken up
and planted in groups in a shady place. They make
their leaves in October, when it is easy to move them
back into the border or onto the rockery where they are
to flower. The double flower is of a very pure white,
and its long stalk adapts it well for glass vases and table
decoration. The large sweet-smelling double white
Rocket, which I mentioned before as growing so well in
the damp Hertfordshire garden, defeated me altogether
for some years ; it made a fair growth of leaves, but never
flowered. Nowit succeeds perfectly. After flowering, we
break it up, put it into a shady place, and replant it in
the borders in the autumn. All this sounds very trouble-
some, but it is really not so at all, as it is so quickly done.
The only trouble is remembering when to do the things;
but that soon comes with practice, and the time of year
always recalls what was done the year before to the true
gardener. Everybody recognises this treatment as
necessary for violets, double and single—which, indeed,
do not flower well without it. The invaluable Imanto-
phyllums, which began to flower in the warm greenhouse

74 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

in January, are doing so still: so are the Arums,
which people insist on calling ‘Lilies.’ They are not
lilies at all, but belong to the same family as the ‘ Lords
and Ladies’ and ‘Cuckoo Pint’ of our hedges. The
large greenhouse Arums come from the Cape, where they
are an absolute weed, appearing wherever the ground is
disturbed or turned up. They are there called Pig Lilies,
perhaps because they feed the pigs on the roots. In the
damp places, I am told, they are magnificent, growing
finer and larger than they ever do in pots in England ;
at the same time, when they come up in dry and heathy
places, they are perfect miniature plants with delicate
little flowers like shells. Arums in pots require lots of
water while growing and flowering, and are better for a
saucer to hold it.

A beautiful crimson Amaryllis, which I brought back
from Guernsey some years ago, isin flower. It has never
flowered before ; but we understand so much better than
we did the drying and ripening in the sun of all the Cape
bulbs, and this makes the whole difference to their
flowering.

April 3rd.—This is the time of year when we make up
our nursery, which I consider one of the most important
gardening acts of the whole year, and one most fruitful
in results. We take up, from wherever they happen to
have been left last autumn, herbaceous Phloxes, early
outdoor Chrysanthemums, and Michaelmas Daisies.
These are broken up into small pieces, according to the
number of plants that are likely to be wanted in the
borders or to give away, and planted in rows in a half-
shady corner of the kitchen garden. Here they are left
to grow and increase till some wet day in July, when
they are planted in bold masses where they are to
flower. They really move better in dry weather than in
wet, and I say a wet day merely because it reduces the

APRIL 75

trouble of watering, which is all the attention they
require. They fill up bare places and holes in the
borders, and flower as they never did with us in the
old days when they were left alone. This treatment
especially suits the Phloxes, which is curious, as they
are moved when just coming into flower. The rows in
the spring must be labelled with the names and colours,
as the different hues of the flowers war with each other
if promiscuously massed. The Michaelmas Daisies
flower earlier in this way than when left to starve in a
dry border or shrubbery, but one can always leave some
in unfavourable places to flower late.

April 4th.—All the Linums and Linarias (see Mr.
Robinson’s book) are useful for house and table decora-
tion, and are very suitable for small gardens. The
common blue Flax is a lovely thing; so is the white
French Willow-weed (Epilobiwm), which is most useful,
and flowers earlier in the year than the common lilac
one.

As a single plant, for beauty of growth and foliage
there are few things as lovely as the common Hemp
plant (Cannabis sativa). It is an annual, easily grown in
April in a pot or box, and planted out.

In gardening, as in most things, it is thought that is
really required, and that wonderful thing which is called
‘a blind god’—love. But blind love is mere passion.
Real love in every form, even towards animals and
plants, is watchful and ever seeing, never missing for a
moment what is for the good and the advantage of the
beloved. In walking round and round the garden, with
a practised eye one soon sees when a plant is getting
on well or the contrary. When a plant is doing badly, it
means the conditions are unfavourable, and it is then
our duty to find out why. In my garden the usual
cause of failure is dryness, and many and many a plant

76 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

has been saved, since I understood this, by a timely
mulching or a good can of water. When things are
coming into flower, especially early Alpines, Gentians,
etc., it is quite safe to water, even in cold weather, early
in the year. Do they not flourish where the ice-water
drips upon them from the first melting of the snows
under the spring sun? larly spring plants do badly in
our soil; but were I there, to watch and to water just
at the right time, I feel sure they would look more
flourishing.

A most beautiful light sprayer for watering small
plants is easily made in the following way :—Take a
piece of sheet zine five or six inches long and four or
five inches wide. Cut a piece half an inch wide on each
side of the zinc to within an inch of the middle, so
making a little band attached to the main piece, and fold
this tightly round the spout of the watering-pot ; bend the
zine sprayer upwards in the middle in a way to enable
the water from the pot to flow over it in a continuous
sheet.

Sorrel is a vegetable seldom grown in English
gardens, and still seldomer properly dressed by English
cooks, and yet it is excellent, either cut up in the white
soup called ‘Bonne femme,’ dressed like Spinach, or
purée’d as thin as a thick sauce. With veal, cooked in
all ways, it is especially good. When the summer gets
on and it is old, it is desirable to add a little Lettuce
with it to soften it, as it gets too sour. It is one of those
vegetables never quite so good in towns, as it is best
freshly picked, and if faded should be revived in water
before cooking. The receipts for cooking it in ‘ Dainty
Dishes’ are quite right.

For those who keep cows, or who can have plenty of
good fresh cream, the following, I think, will be found a
really excellent pudding :—

APRIL 77

Creme Brtlée—Boil one pint of cream for one
minute, pour it on the yelks of four very fresh eggs well
beaten, then put it again on the fire and let it just come
to the boil. Pour it into the dish in which it is to be
served, and let it get cold. Strew a thick crust of
powdered sugar over it, put it in a slow oven for ten
minutes, then brown it with a salamander, and serve it
cold.

April 5th.—We started to-day to spend a week in a
French country house, sleeping one night on our way at
beautiful Chartres, which, as I am not writing a guide-
book, I shall not describe. The weather was bitterly cold;
and when we humbly asked at the hotel for some hot
water, the answer we got was ‘On n’échauffe plus.’
The French submit more meekly than we do to this
kind of regulation, which is curious, as they are so
much more sensible, as a rule, than we are in most of
the details of life. I was interested to see in the small
court of the hotel a quantity of most flourishing Hepat-
icas. These flowers, Mr. Bright tells us, defeated all
his efforts in his Lancashire garden. I have tried them
in various aspects, but they make a sorry show with
me in Surrey. In this little back-yard they shone in the
sunshine, pink and blue, double and single. I suppose
the secret is that they do not mind cold, but they want
sun. I wonder if anyone is very successful with them
in England? How I remember them, in the days of my
youth, pushing through the dead leaves in the little oak
woods in the valleys up the country behind Nice, then, as
now, ‘ Le pays du Soleil,’ but probably long since all
changed into villas and gardens instead of woods and
fields.

A French country house! How different it allis! In
some ways we manage best, in others they do. This
was rather a cosmopolitan than a typically French house,

78 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

and yet in a country how traditions linger and customs
cling! We saw and did many interesting things, thanks
to the cordial hospitality and kindness of our host and
hostess. I, however, will only allude to certain domestic
details which I learnt during my stay, and which may
instruct you as they did me. What interested me much
from a housekeeping point of view was, not only the
excellence of the cooking, as that now can be seen else-
where, but the management of the kitchen. It seems a
small thing to state as an example, but I was told that
no French housekeeper who at all respects herself would
ever allow lard to come into her house. Everything is
fried in what they call graisse, and we call suet. Five or
six pounds are bought from the butcher—anywhere in
England they will let you have it at sixpence a pound.
This is boiled for two or three hours, skimmed and
strained, and poured into jars ready for use, taking the place
of lard when butter or oil are not used. Since I came
home I have never had any lard in my house. Many
people here do not know that dripping can be cleared
by frying some pieces of raw potato in it till they turn
brown ; this will clarify it nicely.

All chickens, game, birds of any kind, are roasted far
more slowly than with us, and at wood fires. The livers,
gizzards, &e., are chopped up and put inside the bird. It
is always basted with butter, which is poured round the
bird when"sent to table. This is a very great improve-
ment with all birds, especially fowls, on the pale watery
gravy or the thick tasteless sauce as served in England.
Our method of sticking the liver and gizzard into the
wing is a useless waste, for they shrivel into a hardened
mass before our fierce coal fires. The French, if they
do not think the livers, ete., necessary for improving the
gravy in the roasting often make them the foundation of
a pie or side-dish. This cutting up the liver and basting

APRIL 79

with butter is a hint well worth remembering, and should
be universally applied in the roasting of all birds. I
noticed that all roast meat was basted with fat or butter,
and the gravy served just as it was, without straining or
clarifying, with all the goodness of the meat in it. This
we have practised ever since at home, with great
approval. Many people would object to this as greasy.
I only say, ‘ Try it.’

A very good, easily made French soup is as follows :—

Potage Paysanne.—Cut one large onion into dice,
put them into a stewpan with two ounces of butter, and fry
a nice golden colour. Then take a half-inch-thick slice
of bread toasted to the same colour; break it into small
pieces, and put them into the stewpan with a pint of good
stock. Simmer gently for thirty-five minutes, then
serve. Quantity for four persons.

The following receipt for a tame duck I can tho-
roughly recommend ; if you follow it exactly, it cannot go
wrong :—

Caneton a l’Orange.—Take a good fat duck, clean
it out, and put the liver apart. Singe the duck, and clean
it very carefully. Then mince the liver with a little
onion and some grated bacon or ham, add salt and
pepper. Put the stuffing inside the duck. Now close
the opening of the duck ; leave the skin of the neck long,
and bring it round under the duck to close the tail.
Spread on the table a clean pudding-cloth, and roll the
duck in this rather tightly, to preserve the shape. Tie up
the two ends of the cloth with string. Put into a stew-
pan, with boiling salted water. Continue to boil it quietly
for one hour for an ordinary duck, one hour and ten
minutes if large; it will then be cooked, and ought to be
a good pink colour. (Chickens boiled in the same way are
excellent.) Take three oranges, peel them with a spoon,
cut the peel in quarters, taking out a// the white ; shred the

80 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

peel as if for Julienne soup; put it into water for
seven or eight minutes, drain on a cloth. Take the
rest of the orange, removing all the white; put the pulp
into a good reduced stock half glazed. Add Spanish
sauce (see ‘ Dainty Dishes’), two or three spoonfuls, and
a little red wine—port is best. Pass through a sieve, and
then add the chips of orange-peel. Unpack the duck,
serve on a dish, surround it with pieces of orange; put
a little sauce over the duck and the rest in a sauce-
boat.

Another good and useful receipt is the following :—

French Pie.—Cut up 2 lbs. of lean veal, 2 lbs. of
bacon, and 2 Ibs. of lean pork, in very thin slices. Place
them in layers in a fireproof pie-dish. Moisten with
stock, and chop up a little herb and very little onion, and
put it between the slices of meat. Cover with a sham
crust of flour and water. Take all the cuttings, parings,
bones, &c.; cook these in water or weak stock, and
reduce to a large teacupful.

When the pie has baked some time slowly, take it out,
take off the crust and pour in the teacupful of stock.
When it has cooled, it improves the appearance of the
dish to put some well-made aspic jelly (see ‘Dainty
Dishes’) on the top.

As it was the end of Lent, I had the chance of seeing
several maigre dishes. All the good cooking which hung
about monasteries and convents was swept out of England
by the Reformation. It has returned only in my life-
time, for gastronomic or health reasons rather than for
religious mortification. The old object was to make
tasty and palatable what the rules of the Church allowed.
The French have a real talent for making good dishes out
of nothing, and this they share with no other nation in
the world. Ox-tails are not used tomake soup in France,
or were not; but when the French refugees came over

APRIL 81

here, they found ox-tails were thrown away and were very
cheap. They immediately utilised them, and made the
excellent ox-tail soup which we use in England to this
day. The black cooks of America, I am told, never spoil
good materials, and they cook good things excellently.
The English have a peculiar gift for taking the taste out
of the best materials that are to be found in the world.
A few terrible tricks of the trade are answerable for a
good deal of this—iron pots and spoons; soda thrown
into many things; water poured over roasted meat for
gravy ; soups cleared with the white of eggs. This will
spoil the best soup in the world, not only taking away all
flavour of meat and vegetables, but supplying a taste
that is not unlike the smell of a dirty cloth. Of late, in
the effort to keep pace with foreign cooking, things
in England have grown too messy, and I sometimes
regret the real Old English dishes of my childhood. The
system of trying to make one thing look like another is
very objectionable, I think, and wanting in good taste.
But I must return to my maigre receipts. The details can
be found in ‘ Dainty Dishes.’

Vol-au-vent au Maigre.—Make a high Vol-au-vent
crust. Prepare some quenelles made of fish—any white
fish would do (lemon-soles, whiting, haddock, gurnet, &c.) ;
some white bottled mushrooms preserved in salt, not
vinegar (this is most important); some small pieces of
boiled fish. Mix these together in a white sauce made of
butter, flour (slightly cooked first, but not coloured) , then
add the milk, warm the whole together, and pour it into
the crust.

A rather nice cake for luncheon can be made as
follows :—Take three eggs, put them into the scale and
weigh against them three equal parts of flour, sugar, and
butter. Then break the eggs and put the yelks into a
basin, melt the butter, add the flour and sugar, and mix

G

82 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

the whole. At the last moment add the whites of the
eggs, beat slightly, and put it into the oven in a round
flat tin with a thin rim. Serve it on a large round
plate. Fresh-water fish, so rare now in England, though
the traces of tanks and ponds are always to be found in
the neighbourhood of old abbeys and monasteries, are
still much eaten in the country in France. Pike and carp
marinaded are constantly seen at table. Marinading
is far too little done in England; it is most useful for
many things—hares, venison, beef, and grouse—and it
preserves the meat for some time, if that is what is wanted.
It is described in ‘Dainty Dishes,’ but I give you also
the following receipt :—

German Receipt for Roast Hare.—Take a bottle
of common white wine (or any remnants of already opened
bottles); cut up onions, carrots, herbs, bay-leaf, a clove or
two ; and pour the whole over the raw hare in a shallow
baking-pan, basting it well every few hours in a cool
place for two or three days. Then prepare the hare. Take
off the head, lard it well, and put it into the roasting-pan
with a little dripping and more onions, carrots, herbs,
salt, and pepper. When roasted, take it out of the oven,
pour off all the grease, and replace it by half a breakfast-
cupful of thick sour cream, which is to be mixed with
the gravy at the bottom of the pan. Replace it in the
oven, baste well with the mixture, and serve just as it is,
pouring the sauce over the hare.

Chervil is always used in France for spring decoration
of fish, cold meat, &c. It is much hardier and more
easily grown than Parsley, and lives through the coldest
weather if covered up with sticks and fern. In severe
winters Parsley sometimes fails in English gardens.

The life in the little French town near which we were
was like a page out of a volume of Balzac’s ‘Vie de
Province,’ so full of character, and, in a sense, so far
away and old-fashioned.

APRIL 83

I had the privilege of visiting and hearing the story
of one of that charming type, the French old maid. I
sat in her kitchen whilst her bonne prepared the Sunday
dinner for herself, an adopted child, and the inevitable
male friend, be he doctor, notary, or priest. The soup
was maigre and economical :—One large onion cut up and
fried in butter in a saucepan over a very slow fire till a
nice yellow-brown. Then the saucepan filled up with
boiling water from a kettle, and allowed to cook half an
hour. Then strained, and a sufficient quantity of Vermi-
celli added. Cook for fifteen or twenty minutes more, and
serve. A chicken, prepared as before described, was
roasted for an hour and a half before a slow wood fire,
basted with butter all the time, and served with the butter
round it as gravy. The salad was carefully picked young
Watercress (never used by itself for salads in England),
with oil and vinegar, and a hard-boiled egg cut into
small quarters laid on the top. (Few know that Water
cress can be grown in ordinary garden soil, in half-shade,
if sown every spring.) The wine was good, and the
sweets came from the pastry-cook.

During our short stay in France I saw several
gardens, but nothing at all interesting. As we drove
through the villages I noticed specimens of a white
variety of Iberis gibraltarica (Candytuft) grown in pots,
carefully pruned and cared for, standing in the windows
of the cottages. Managed in this way, it made a very
charming spring pot-plant. I have never seen it so
treated in England. It is not quite hardy. I brought
home cuttings, but they all died. I have now several
plants which I have grown from seed. From their
appearance I do not think they will flower well till they
are two or three years old; they will want hard cutting
back directly after flowering.

It was early in the year, and no sors of spring

a2

84 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

gardening was aimed at in the large bare beds cut in rather
coarse grass. I think turf is overdone in England; but
why it should be attempted at all where it grows badly,
and is rarely successful, I cannotimagine. How infinitely
prettier it would be to have earth planted with shrubs
and low-growing, creeping plants, with grass paths! The
shrubs that I saw in France seemed to me as much over-
pruned-——indeed stiffly cut back in spring—as they are
under-pruned in England.

April 16th.—We returned home last night. At this
time of year how a week or ten days changes the growth
in one’s garden! I must confess that sometimes, coming
home after dark, I have taken a hand-candle to inspect
some special favourite.

Buddleia globosa is well worth growing, even in a
small garden. It has many merits besides its golden
balls, which so charmed Mr. Bright, and which here, at
any rate, I think rather disappointing. The growth is
lovely; and the tone of the green unusual, mixing well
with many summer flowers. It lasts a long time in
water in the hottest weather. The more you cut it, the
better it seems to do. It was killed to the ground in the
cold winter of 94-95, but broke up from the roots as
strong asever. Some plants do this ; others never recover.
The shrubby Veronicas never do break up from the roots
here. My large Arbutus, killed the same winter, threw up a
few shoots, but never did any good, and died the next year.
I think the shrubby Veronicas so well worth growing that
I have five cr six varieties; and as they are not quite
hardy, I keep pots of cuttings every winter. This we do
also with three or four nominally hardy Cistuses, though
they are a litile more difficult to strike. Helianthemums
or Rock-roses are well worth growing from seed in a
sunny dry situation. I know nothing more charming
than these delicate, bright-flowered little plants blazing

APRIL 85

and blinking in the sunshine. I have a double-flowered
scarlet Rock-rose, not figured in any of my books, and
which I have rarely seen in gardens. It flowers persist-
ently for many months.

April 17th.—We have had lately a severely cold week
—Blackthorn winter indeed. How the poor garden
shrivels and shrinks, and seems to lose all its colour!

Many years ago, in a volume of Tennyson given me by
Owen Meredith, he wrote on the fly-leaf the following little
poem, full of sympathy for the gardener :—

In Nature can aught be unnatural ?
If so, it is surely the frost,
That cometh by night and spreadeth death’s pall
On the promise of summer which spring hath lost.
In a clear spring night
Such a frost pass’d light
Over the budding earth, like a ghost.

But the flowers that perish’d
Were those alone
Which, in haste to be cherish’d
And loved and known,
Had too soon to the sun all their beauty shown.
Lightly vested,
Amorous-breasted
Blossom of almond, blossom of peach—
Impatient children, with hearts unsteady,
So young, and yet more precocious each
Than the leaves of the summer, and blushing already
These perished because too soon they lived ;
But the oak-flower, self-restrained, survived ;
‘Tf the sun would win me,’ she thought, ‘he must
Wait for me, wooing me warmly the while;
For a flower’s a fool, if a flower would trust
Her whole sweet being to one first smile.’

86 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

MAY

Vegetable growing—Autumn annuals—Spring seeds—Description
of my own garden— Weeding—Houses facing west—Flowering
shrubs—May flowers—Sundials—Roses and Creepers— History
of the Tulip—Salads— Plant shelters—Sweet Verbena — Blue
Anemones—Packing cut flowers—A few simple receipts—Plants
in pots.

May 1st—I have not mentioned during these spring
months the cultivation of the kitchen garden. I leave
that entirely to my gardener, only helping throughout
the year by looking up in Vilmorin’s book (mentioned in
January) any special vegetables which are not generally
cultivated in Hngland, and noting any deficiency in
quantity or quality. No one can expect everything to be
equally successful every season, as an unfortunate sowing,
a dry fortnight, a late frost, or a cold wind are answerable
for a good deal in any garden. It is always some con-
solation if one finds one’s failures are shared by one’s
neighbours, because then it is more likely to be from
some atmospheric cause than from one’s own bad cultiva-
tion. All the same, the best gardeners have the fewest
failures.

Wedo not sow Sunflowers and many autumn-flowering
annuals before the first week in May. For out-of-the-way
hardy and half-hardy seeds I find no one is more to be
relied on than Mr. Thompson of Ipswich. His packets
of seed are not so large nor so expensive as those of
some other first-class nurserymen, a great advantage for

MAY 87

amateurs. His catalogue is one of the best—simple,
concise, and clear, and giving all the information really
wanted, except perhaps by beginners. These, however,
are equally depressed and bewildered by every catalogue
and every gardening book.

Nothing is so delightful as the first warm days, which
come sometimes at the beginning, sometimes later in May.
By this time all the March seeds are well up, the whole
garden teems with life, and all Nature seems full of joy.
The following little poem, which was in a May Pall
Mall two years ago, expresses so charmingly the joyous-
ness of spring that I copied it out :—

BABY SHED SONG

Little brown seed, oh! little brown brother,

Are you awake in the dark?
_ Here we lie cosily, close to each other ;

Hark to the song of the lark—

‘Waken!’ the lark says, ‘ waken and dress you;
Put on your green coats and gay.

Blue sky will shine on you, sunshine caress you—
Waken! ’tis morning—’tis May!’

Little brown seed, oh! little brown brother,
What kind of flower will you be?
I'll be a poppy—all white, like my mother ;
Do be a poppy, like me.
What! you’re a sunflower? How I shall miss you
When you’re grown golden and high !
But I shall send all the bees up to kiss you ;
Little brown brother, good-bye.

May 3rd—It seems almost useless to describe my
garden. Though I myself am so very fond of it, there
isno reason anyone else should understand why I love it ;
and when I read the description of the gardens that
other people love, I wonder I can bear with it at all. It
is surrounded, as I said before, with large forest trees ;

88 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

and that most objectionable of conifers, a Wellingtonia,
grows almost in the middle of the garden. I cannot cut
it down, as this would deprive the lawn-tennis ground of
the only shade it has. How I long to turn that lawn-
tennis ground into a sunk Dutch garden, withits low red
wall all round it! Yet I know I should miss them very
much if I no longer heard the cries of the lawn-tennis
game or the more recent click of the croquet-balls. The
top of the low wall, in front of the south side of the
house, is a long bed of Tea Roses. Mr. Robinson names all
the best sorts, so I need not do so. They do not flourish
very well with us, I confess, and yet certainly better than
any other Roses. It is their first flowering in June that
is not very good. From August to October they are a
great delight, flowering at intervals during all that time,
and sending up long lovely shoots of brown leaves, that
one can gather without scruple, as they are sure to be in-
jured by the winter frosts; and the more the blooms are
cut, the more they flower. At the other side of the lawn-
tennis ground I have a little rockery, the system of which
I can recommend to anyone who wants room and various
aspects for plants without blocking out the rest of the
garden or the distance beyond. We dug a large deep hole
in the ground, carrying up gradually a small irregular
path to the level of the ground on each side, roughly
placing pieces of flat stone on each side of the path (to
form steps) and all round the hole at the bottom. We
kept the earth from falling by facing it with a wall of
stones, stuck flatly and irregularly into the earth; this
makes an excellent cool and deep root-bed for many
Alpine and other plants. When it rains, there is a natural
tendency for the water to drain down in all directions into
the hole at the bottom. This hole had been dug deeper
in the middle, and puddled with a little clay, not cement ;
and arge stones were laid in the bottom, to retain the

MAY 89

water longer than it naturally would remain in our sand.
For really dry weather some pipes are laid on undergound
to a tap in another part of the garden, from which the
water runs into a tub at the top of the rockery for
watering, and the overflow falls into the hole. In
this way our tiny water-bed is kept moist in the dryest
weather.

We grow in the water one of the most beautiful of our
river plants, the Ranunculus lingua, or Water Buttercup.
It has a noble growth and large, shining, yellow flowers,
which bloom for a long time. Its only fault is that, if
given the position it likes, it grows and increases with
weed-like rapidity, and in a small space must be ruth-
lessly thinned out when it begins to grow in spring, and
often later as well. We have in the hole Japanese
Primulas and Japanese Ivis (Kempferi), though they do not
flower as well as in the dry bed above, which is the
hottest, dryest, most sunny place in the garden; and the
only attention they get, after being planted in good leaf
mould, is some copious waterings when the flower-buds
are formed. They have the largest, finest flowers I have
ever seen in England. I must not forget our native
Forget-me-nots, which, Tennyson says, ‘ grow for happy
lovers.’ It is a much more persistent flowerer than the
garden kind. In his ‘Lancashire Garden’ Mr. Bright
praises very much the Primula japonica, and nothing
can be more charming and unusual than the whorled
growth ofits flower-stems. He calls the blossoms crimson;
I call them dark magenta—at any rate, they have that
purple tinge which spoils so many reds. Where they
really look well is in a moist ditch or on the damp half-
shaded edge of a wood. If the ground is prepared for
them, and the white kind planted too, they sow themselves
in endless variety of tone from dark to light; but they
are not especially suited for beds or mixing with other

go POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

plants, and from their colour are not worth growing in
pots.

All round the top of the hole described above is a
raised bed, left irregular in places from the throwing-up of
the earth that was dug out. The whole thingis ona very
small scale in my garden, but it partakes slightly of the
nature of the rockeries at Kew, which anyone interested
in this kind of gardening can see, and by seeing learn.
The great point of making a rockery is to have large
mounds of good earth, and then lay stones on them,
making terraces and little flat beds, stoned over to retain
the moisture and prevent the earth being washed away.
The old idea was to have stumps of trees or mounds of
stones and brick, and then fill in the interstices with
earth. This is no good at all; the plants have no depth
of earth, and perish. The trouble of such gardening
consists only in the constant hand-weeding that it
requires. This must be done by someone more or less
experienced, as very often the most precious plant looks
like a small weed, while in other cases many planted
things are no better than weeds if left alone, and quickly
choke and destroy all their less vigorous neighbours.

Weeding! What it means to us all! The worry of
seeing the weeds, the labour of taking them up, the way
they flourish at busy times, and the dangers that come
from zeal without knowledge! When we first went to
live in the country, an affectionate member of the family,
who hates weeds and untidiness of all kinds, set to work
to tear up ruthlessly every annual that had been sown,
and with pride said, ‘At any rate, I have cleared that
bit of ground.’ Weeding, if tiring, is also a fascinating
employment; and so is spudding. The first is best done
in dry weather, the second in moist. Iam all for reducing
lawns and turf, except for paths, in small gardens ; but
what there is of grass should be well kept, and free from

MAY gr

weeds. A quantity of daisies showing up their white
faces, though pretty in theory, are in fact very unbecom-
ing to the borders on a sunshiny summer’s day.

The longest side of the house faces west. How I love
it because of this! To my mind, every country house
is dull that does not face west, and have its principal
view that way. Modern civilisation forbids us to enjoy
the sunrise, but the varied effects of the sunset sky
glorify everything—the most commonplace gable or the
ugliest chimney-stack, a Scotch fir or an open field, which
assumes a green under an evening primrose sky that it
never has at any other time. The sky is like the sea for
its ever-changefulness. You may watch sunsets most
carefully every day in the year, and never will you see
twice exactly the same effect. How we all know, and
notice after midsummer, that marching south of the sun
at setting-time! The old fellow in June sets right away
to the north, over the Common, changing groups of trees
and a little distant hill to purple and blue. At the
autumn equinox he looks straight in at the windows as
he goes down between the stems of the two tall fir-trees.
Who, when forced to come in to dinner on a summer’s
evening, does not appreciate a west dining-room with tall
panes of glass which give the power to measure the
eradations of the sky, from the deep grey-blue of night’s
garments at the top, to the bright gold, streaked with
purple and crimson, at the base—the earth growing
mysteriously dark all the while, and the evening star
shining brighter every minute? Architects tell you, and
men say, they prefer that a house should face south-east.
I do not at all agree with them ; the effects of evening to
me are too much to give up for any other advantage in the
world, real or imaginary. It is far easier to make some
other room into a breakfast-room, to catch the morning
sun in winter, than to change your dining-room in the

92 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

summer for the sake of the sunsets. To the west, then,
I have my fountain, level with the turf, and with only the
ornament of some special plants. To the right of the
fountain is a large bed of carnations, slightly raised and
terraced with stones, to give good depth of rich soil,
unrobbed of moisture from the strong-growing shrubs
behind, that are especially necessary for protection from
the north and east. I strongly advise that on first coming
to a new place you should never cut down much till you
have given all the consideration possible to that matter of
protection. I cannot repeat too often that wind-swept
gardens can never be really satisfactory to the gardener.
On the left of the fountain, cut in the grass, are the two
long borders, far the most difficult part of the garden
to keep as I should wish them to be. They should be
always gay and bright, the highest plants planted down
the middle ; and even they should be unequal in height.
All plants that grow forward into the grass must be kept
for other beds edged with stone or gravel. Borders cut
in grass must be luxuriant and not untidy, and filled
principally with plants which in their non-flowering
season are not unsightly. It is for such borders that the
seed beds and the reserve garden are so indispensable.
On the left of these borders are a few specimen plants
cut in the grass :—A Polygonum cuspidatwm, which is a
joy from the first starting of its marvellous quick spring
growth to its flowering-time, and to the day when its
yellow autumn leaves leave the bare red-brown branches
standing alone after the first frosts of October ; a Siberian
Crab, beautiful with blossom in spring and with fruit in
autumn; also that lovely autumn-flowering shrub Des-
modium penduliflorum, which has to be cut down every
year, and which is never seen to advantage in a border
because of its feathery and spreading growth. Behind
these again, and facing due north and shaded from the

MAY 93

south, is a large bed of the old Moss-Rose, which in this
position does exceedingly well. The large branches are
partly pegged down, and they are not pruned back very
hard. Behind the fountain, away from the house, are
bamboos, Japanese grasses, and low-growing, shrubby
Spirzas ; the smallest gardens should not be without
some of these, more especially S. thunbergi, so precious for
its miniature early flowers and its lovely decorative foliage,
and very useful for picking and sending away. Clethra
(Sweet Pepper Bush) is also a useful little shrub, as it
flowers in July, when watering helps it to bloom well.
But I have only to refer you again and again to the
‘English Flower Garden.’ If you study this, you will
never lack variety or plenty, whatever your soil, or your
situation, or your aspect—no, nor even your nearness to
that deadly enemy of plant life, a smoky town.

A lovely spring-flowering shrub is Exochorda grandi-
flora. Ican most conscientiously say, ‘Getit.’ It is per-
fectly hardy; the flowers, full-blown and in bud, are of
an exquisitely pure white, and the foliage is light-green,
delicate, and refined.

One of the most precious of May flowers, and one not
nearly enough grown, is the early Dutch Honeysuckle.
It is nearly white, though it dies off yellow. I have
named it in the lists, but it deserves, if only for picking, a
place in every garden. Being an early bloomer, it re-
quires a warm place, and would do admirably against the
low wall of any greenhouse. Those precious frontages to
greenhouses, in large places and in what I call ‘ gardeners’
gardens,’ are so often left unused, neat, empty, and bare.
On these wasted places many lovely things would grow,
and none better than this beautiful Dutch Honeysuckle,
with its double circles of blooms, its excellent travelling
qualities, and its powerful sweet scent, unsurpassed by
anything. It is, ] suppose, like many things, better for

94 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

good feeding. It wants nothing but cutting back hard as
soon as it has made its summer growth, after flowering, to
keep it well in its place. It flowers profusely year after
year, and it is easily increased by summer layering.

Old Man or Southernwood (Artemisia abrotanwm)
ought never to be forgotten. It grows easily from cuttings
stuck into the ground in any of the early summer months.
I am told that it is an especial favourite with the London
poor. Perhaps its strong smell brings back any chance
association with the country and the cottage garden. It
reminds one of the old story of the poor Irishman, when
the Lady Bountiful of the place had transformed his cabin
into the graceful neatness of an English cottage. He gazed
half-indignantly and half-gratefully on the change. ‘It is
all very kind,’ said he, ‘ but the good lady does not know
how dear to a poor man is everything that reminds him
of the time when he played, instead of working. These
ereat folks do not understand us.’ But, after all, are we
not all like that? Does not sweet Nature herself throw a
veil over the storms of middle-life and soften memories,
which become sharp, vivid, and clear only concerning our
young days and the time when ‘we played,’ full of
buoyant hope for all that lay before us ?

T have always wished for a sundial in the middle of
my grass walks where they widen into a circle. Hven
in an unpretending modern garden I do not think a sun-
dial is affected—or, at any rate, not very—and I long to
write round the top of it my favourite among the old
Italian mottoes:—‘I only mark the bright hours.’ To
the left of my long borders are four large, most useful,
square beds, divided by narrow green paths. These are
planted and sown, and renewed three or four times a year ;
and I always wonder how anyone gets on without such
kinds of beds. The Love-in-the-Mist and Gypsophila
gracilis are sown broadcast here together twice a year,

MAY 95

in March andin September. I always save my own seed of
Love-in-the-Mist ; but in doing that, you must be careful
to mark the best, largest, and bluest flowers. Then what
you keep is far better than what you can buy ; but, unless
you take this trouble, seeds grown in one place degenerate.
To the right of the long borders are two large Rose beds
with Roses—old-fashioned rather than very large ones.
The Hybrid Perpetuals do so badly in the light soil; but
here are Gloria Mundi, Cottage-maid, the dear little
pink Fose de Meaux, the large white Cabbage, and so
on. Beyond the Rose beds is a covered walk, made
with stems of small fir-trees bound together with wire—
an attempt at a pergola, but not by any means as solid
as I should like. On this grow vines, hardy climbing
Roses, Honeysuckles, and a dark claret-coloured Vine
(which looks well), Aristolochia, Clematis (various), and, to
make a little brightness in spring, two Kerrias. The
single one, which is the original Japanese plant, is very
uncommon, and yet so pretty—much better for wedging
than the double kind, the old Jews-mallow of cottage
gardens.

All these plants want constant watching, pruning,
manuring, chalking, mulching. One ought always to be
on the watch to see if things do not look well, and why
they do not. The great thing to remember is, that if
a plant is worth growing at all it is worth growing
healthily. A Daisy or a Dandelion, fine, healthy, and
robust, as they hold up their heads in the spring sunshine,
give more pleasure and are better worth looking at than
the finest flower one knows that looks starved, drooping
and perishing at the flowering-time. With many plants
bere, if not watered at the flowering-time, the buds droop
and the flowers never expand at all.

We have been eating lately, as Spinach, and found it
guite delicious, the leaves cf the Chicory, which Sutton

96 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

calls ‘Christmas Salad.’ It is a first-rate plant all
through the winter, an excellent salad, and now so good,
useful, and wholesome to eat cooked. It should be dressed
as recommended for Spinach in ‘ Dainty Dishes.’

This is the time to make Rhubarb jam; if carefully
made, and a little ginger added, it is very good indeed.

To my mind, few flowers please the eye as the Tulip
does.

7’. gesneriana, with its handsome long stem and
brilliant flower, gives me especial delight. The Tulip is
a member of the Lily family, and has an interesting
history, which I read one day in a newspaper. It is a
native of Asia Minor, and was brought from Constantinople
in 1557. It was first flowered in Mngland in 1559 by the
wife of an apothecary. She had procured the first bulb
from a grateful sailor who had brought it home in return
for attentions during sickness, by which his life was saved.
Tt was all he had, like the widow's mite, but it was a
source of great profit to the wife of the apothecary,
who tenderly cultivated it, and sold the bulbs for a guinea
each after she had, by good care, procured a sutticient
stock of them.

May 5th.—The garden looks dull just now; but four
weeks of no rain always produce that effect on this soil.
When the showers do come, everything revives in the
most extraordinary way, partly from the earth being so
warm and dry. The only rather showy things in the
garden are some early red Rhododendrons, and they look
droopy; a Siberian Crab, which has been one mass of
snowy-white blossoms for a fortnight; and a most desir-
able little shrub called Dewteia elegans, quite hardy,
totally unaffected by our coldest winters, flowering every
year, and wanting no attention except the cutting-back
every year after flowering. Berberises Ido not find quite
so hardy as one expects them to be, but this very likely is

MAY 97

because they do not grow very robust, owing to the dryness
of the soil. B. Darwiniti was nearly killed by the severe
winter, but is now flowering profusely, and is a lovely
and desirable shrub. The whole charm of flowering
shrubs, to my mind, depends on their being given lots of
room, and sufficient care being taken of them to make
them individually healthy plants. The dear little pink
Daphne Cneorum is doing well, but I have myself often
given it a canful of water during the last fortnight. It
is very much strengthened if, after the flowering, you
layer a certain number of the branches, covering them
with a little peat; this enables you to increase your
stock of plants, and improves the size of your specimen
plant.

All this last month we have been eating the thin-
nings of seedling Lettuces as salad, and they are most
delicious. All kinds of Lettuces seem to eat equally well ;
they are grown in boxes in a frame. I first thought of
eating them from seeing that they were thrown away to
give room for those that were going to be planted out. I
now purposely grow them in extra quantities, and in
succession, so that my salads may never fall short. Even
out of doors, in the summer, we sometimes grow them if
our large Lettuces run to seed. They make infinitely
better salad than the tough little brown Cos Lettuces,
grown with such care in frames all through the winter.
All the year round I always mix the salad on the table
myself, using nothing but oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper ;
and I always have brought to table, on a separate little
plate, some herbs, Tarragon, Chervil, and some very
young Onions; these I cut up over the Lettuces before
I mix in the oil and vinegar. If you have no young
Onions, Chive-tops do very well. These herbs are an
immense addition to any salad, but are far from
universally used in England, though they are quite easy

H

98 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

to grow, for anyone who has a kitchen garden, even a
small one. The Tarragon, however, and the Onions have
to be grown in the conservatory in the winter. Many
young gardeners do not know that the secret of young
Potatoes being good, and not watery, is to take them out
of the ground several days before you boil them. A little

Mint chopped on to young Potatoes instead of Parsley
makes a pleasant change ; but then we English like Mint,
and it is very different here from the Mint grown in dry
countries, which is just ike Peppermint. The French
have a way of boiling Asparagus which is especially good
for the thin green Asparagus so common in our English
gardens :—You tie them into a bundle, and put them;
stalk downwards, into a fairly deep saucepan. In this
way the heads are only cooked by the steam, and do not
become soppy.

May 10th.—I have a friend who to-day writes she is
having iron rings driven into an old stone house round
the windows so as to hold pots of Carnations and
Geraniums, to hang down as they do in Tyrol and
Switzerland. This will look pretty, no doubt, if it
answers ; but in our cold and windy summers I am sure
they would do better if one pot were sunk inside another
with some moss between, so that the evaporation caused
by the wind, which freezes the roots, should not be so great.
Abroad the pots are frequently glazed either all the way
down or part of the way down; this stops evaporation.
So many greenhouse plants, when they are ‘ stood out,’ as
the gardeners say, get injured by the cold winds on the
pots, which does far more harm than the wind on the
leaves. One of the best and simplest remedies is to
dig moderately deep trenches with a raised border round
them of turf or boards, and stand the pots in these,
instead of on the open ground. Sheets of corrugated iron
cut to convenient sizes make excellent movable shelters

MAY 99

for plants from the north-east wind. Shelter in all
forms, without taking too much out of the soil, as trees
and shrubs do, is the great secret of success in all kinds
of gardening. I should spend my life in inventing shelters
if I lived on the Hast Coast; but I confess that tem-
porary protections are not very pretty. Another good
method of obtaining shelter is to use common hurdles of
iron or wood, or flat laths with Gorse or Bracken twisted
into them. When all your hand-lights are in use in Spring,
a good deal of protection from frost may be given to the
seed beds by sheets of newspaper held down by a stone or
two; muslin sewn over a zinc wire-coop will keep out six
or seven degrees of frost. Dried Bracken spread over
frames is even better for keeping out frost than matting,
and is nearly as easily removed.

May 11th.—EHpimediums are charming little plants
with lovely, graceful foliage, and are well worth growing
if you have a moist and shady corner. EH. pinnatum is
perhaps the best, and has long clusters of small yellow
flowers ; the leaves are very pretty, and mix well with any
flowers.

Aloysia citriodora (Sweet Verbena) is a plant that is
a universal favourite. I have never known anyone, not
even those who dislike strongly scented flowers, not be
delighted with the delicious refreshing smell of its leaves,
which they retain long after they are dried. Yet you go
to house after house, and find no plants growing out of
doors. Their cultivation is simple, and they require
but little care to make them quite hardy; out of five
or six plants which I have out of doors, only one died
in the hard winter two years ago. If you have any small
plants in your greenhouse (if not, buy them at sixpence
apiece), put them out at the end of May, after harden-
ing off, in a warm sunny place, either close to a wall or

under the shelter of a wall. Water them, if the weather
H 2

100 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

is dry ; and do not pick them much the first year, as their
roots correspond to the top growth. Cut off the flowers
as they appear. When injured by the frost, never cut
the branches down till quite late in the following year. It
is this cutting-back that causes the death of so many
plants ; the larger stems are hollow, and the water in
them either rots or freezes the roots. In November
cover the roots of the Verbena with a heap of dry ashes ;
this is all the care they require, and they will break up
stronger and finer each year. I have kept plants in this
way year after year, even in an open border. I believe
they would grow in London gardens as long as they have
plenty of sun ; and if the plant is weak when they begin to
grow in the spring, it would be well to pick off some of
the shoots. The cuttings strike quite easily all through
the summer in sand in a greenhouse or under a bell-glass.

May 14th.—I suppose it is the same with everything in
life that one really cares about, and you must not, any of
you, be surprised if you have moments in your gardening
life of such profound depression and disappointment that
you will almost wish you had been content to leave
everything alone and have no garden at all. This is
especially the case in a district affected by smoke or
wind, or in a very light sandy soil. Five weeks without
a drop of rain, and everything bursts into flower and as
quickly goes off. Two or three days ago the lilacs were
quite beautiful, having responded well to last year’s
pruning ; now they are faded and scentless, and almost
ugly. The German Irises, too, were blooming well, with
long healthy stalks. I find that what helps them here is
to grow the small pieces one buys from the nurseryman
for two or three years in rich garden soil, where they
grow quickly, making roots and leaves. After that I
move them into some dry border facing east or south,
and I find that they then flower as well as one

MAY TOL

can possibly desire. The beautiful pale-blue Anemone
apennina is now nodding its little blue heads under my
big trees. In the far-away days of my childhood—it
must have been in the ’Forties—a really typical man-of-
the-world presented my mother with four well-bound
volumes of Mrs. Hemans’ poems. Imagine any man
giving such a present now! And yet she wrote some
pretty things, of which the following is a specimen, and
certainly it is quite as good as many modern flower-
poems :—

TO THE BLUE ANEMONE

Flower of starry clearness bright,
Quivering urn of coloured light,
Hast thou drawn thy cup’s rich dye
From the intenseness of the sky ?
From a long, long fervent gaze
Through the year’s first golden days
Up that blue and silent deep

Where, like things of sculptured sleep,
Alabaster clouds repose

With the sunshine on their snows ?
Thither was thy heart’s love turning,
Like a censer ever burning,

Till the purple heavens in thee

Set their smile, anemone ?

Or can those warm tints be caught
Kach from some quick glow of thought ?
So much of bright soul there seems

In thy bendings and thy gleams,

So much thy sweet life resembles

That which feels and weeps and trembles,
I could deem thee spirit-filled

As a reed by musie thrilled

When thy being I behold

In each loving breath unfold,

Or, like woman’s willowy form,

Shrink before the gathering storm,

I could ask a voice from thee

Delicate anemone,

102 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY! GARDEN

Flower, thou seem’st not born to die,
With thy radiant purity,

But to melt in air away,

Mingling with the soft spring day.
When the crystal heavens are still,
And faint azure veils each hill,
And the lime-leaf does not move,
Save to songs that stir the grove,
And earth all glorified is seen,

As imaged in some lake serene—
Then thy vanishing should be,
Pure and meek anemone.

Flower, the laurel still may shed
Brightness round the victor’s head,
And the rose in beauty’s hair

Still its festal glory wear,

And the willow leaves droop o’er
Brows which love sustains no more;
But thy living rays refined,

Thou, the trembler of the wind,
Thou, the spiritual flower,

Sentient of each breeze and shower,
Thou, rejoicing in the skies,

And transpierced with all their dyes,
Breathing vase, with light o’erflowing,
Gem-like to thy centre glowing—
Thou the poet’s type shall be,
Flower of soul, anemone.

May 16th.—None of the small cheap bulbs are better
worth growing than the Alliums, white and yellow.
They increase themselves rapidly, and are quite hardy,
though the white ones force well and are useful. People
object to them because the stalks smell of garlic at the
time of picking, but it goes off as soon as they are put into
water; and the flowers are lovely, delicate, and useful,
and have the great merit I mention so often of remaining
a long time fresh in water. We leave some of the bulbs
in the ground, and take up others. Those that are taken

MAY 103

up and dried in the sun flower best the following year ;
and the finest bulbs can be planted together, the yellow
making a fine splotch of colour just as the yellow
Alyssum is over. The smaller the garden, the more
essential it is to get a succession in colour. Avoid many
white flowers in small gardens; in roomy gardens with
shady corners nothing looks better than the common
single white and purple Rocket, raised from seed and
planted in bold groups. It will grow in very dry places,
but it soon gets untidy, and has to be cut back, which it
does not seem to mind at all.

Tiarella cordifolia (‘ Foam-flower,’ Mr. Robinson calls
it) is a little Canadian plant which ought never to be left
out of any garden.

May 19th—This is the first day of one of the great
gardening interests and treats in the year—the Royal
Horticultural Show in the Temple Gardens. I go every
year now, and should be sorry to miss it. How odd it
seems, that for years and years I never went to a flower
show, or knew anything about them, and now they have
become one of the interests of my life! The great
attraction this year is the revival of what are called
old-fashioned late single Tulips—Breeders, Flames, &c.
Those who like to buy the bulbs, ordering them care-
fully by the catalogue, may have their gardens gay with
Tulips for over two months, certainly the whole of April
and May. The quantity of Apples, for so late in the
season, was what struck me as almost the most remark-
able thing at the show. One of the great growers told
me that he had tried every conceivable plan for keeping
Apples, but that nothing answered so well as laying them
simply on open, well-aired shelves in a fruit-house that
was kept free from frost.

Tradescantia virginica (Spiderworts) are plants that
do admirably in light soils, and flower two or three times

104 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

in the summer, wanting nothing beyond thinning-out
and transplanting, and dividing in the autumn. The pale-
blue and the white are even more beautiful than the dark-
blue and the red-purple; but they are all worth having,
with their quaint-shaped flowers, so unlike other things.
Every year, towards the end of May, I put in cuttings of
Lavender and Rosemary. If the weather is dry, they are
what gardeners call ‘ puddled-in,’ which means that the
ground is very much wetted first. In this way I have
a constant supply of young plants. Rosemary is only
really hardy with us if planted under the protection of
large shrubs ; the keen winds of March cut them off in
the open. Many other plants can be increased in the
same way—early flowering shrubs such as Ribes san-
guinum, the Forsythias, &. Last spring, in Suffolk, I
saw a charming little garden-hedge made of Ribes san-
guinum, all one brilliant mass of its flowers. This is quite
worth trying; its success would depend on its being
sharply pruned back the moment after flowering and
before its seeds ripen. If your cuttings take, you can
make your hedge in October. It is rather a repetition of
the well-known and often-seen Sweetbriar hedge, which
is all the better in a light soil for cutting back the young
growths in July as well as for the spring pruning. It is
a very good plan this month to take off some of the
shoots—apt to be too numerous—that sprout on the
pruned-back creepers, such as White Jasmine, Vines
of all kinds, and Bignonia radicans, which handsome
old garden favourite buds so late that the flowers do not
expand unless treated in this way.

May 22nd.—Not the smallest and dryest garden should |

be without Stachys lanata, a white woolly leaved plant,
called Rabbit’s Ears by cottage children, and particularly
attractive to some people, who through life retain the
love of a child for something woolly and soft. Certain

yd, “Se
Pe
Beata A

MAY 105

characteristics are always reminding us, especially in
some women, even when old, that they were once child-
ren. These leaves were formerly used as edgings to beds
in a very objectionable way; but when grown in large
clumps, they are most useful for picking. When cut, they
go on growing in water, as Buttercups and Forget-me-
nots do, and mix very well with many flowers, especially
with Narcissus poeticus, any of the German Irises, and
the lovely white Scilla campanulata, a cheap bulb, of
which we can hardly have too many. There is a blue
and a pink kind, but the white is the most lovely; and, in
my opinion, all three are better worth growing than the
usual Hyacinths, double or single. I think the people
who live in the country in spring would find it more
satisfactory to grow their greenhouse bulbs in large, open
pans, several together, and covered with some of the
mossy Saxifrages, than the usual two or three in a pot
that gardeners are so fond of. If the pan has no hole at
the bottom for drainage, you must put in lots of crocks,
and be careful not to over-water; but bulbs like their
roots moist.

I made a curious experiment with the little double
Prunus. One moved last autumn, and one moved last
spring out of the nursery into a sunny, sheltered border,
are both covered with bloom, and lovely objects.
Another plant, which was left in a sunny border for a
year, has no bloom on it at all, though it is quite healthy.
This is one more proof of how much is to be done with
reserve gardens and moving in this light dry soil. Next
month I shall choose a wet day, and move them all
back again into the nursery. The white Dog-tooth
Violet and the various Fritillarias are very satisfactory
things. They like shade and a certain amount of moist-
ure, but it is not necessary for their cultivation; they
will grow anywhere. The common Sazifraga, London

106 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Pride, is a most desirable, useful plant; it is the better
for dividing every two years. It travels well picked, and
is so pretty and decorative in water; it looks well with
large red Oriental Poppies, with no green at all. Szlene,
too, looks well with it in small glasses, for a change.

Deutzia crenata is a charming shrub, and flowering
well this year. Unless the garden is very small, anyone
who lives in the country in spring ought to have it.
There is so little room for shrubs in a very small plot of
ground, and no garden can be beautiful except when the
lie of the ground and the surrounding circumstances are
beautiful. The only ambition that can be indulged in
with a small flat ground is to grow the greatest number
of healthy plants possible in the least amount of space,
and so secure continuous and varied flowers for nine
months of the year.

The planning and laying-out of a small garden without
great natural advantages ought to be as practical and
simple as possible, a mere improvement on the cottage
garden :—A small, straight path of brick or paving-stone,
or grass or gravel, though that is the least desirable of
all to my mind. Let beds be on either side. If you have
shrubs round the edge of the garden to hide the paling,
have a grass path in front of the shrubs, and then square
or long beds in the middle. Never have a small lawn
with beds cut in that; nothing gives so much labour and
so little satisfaction as beds cut out of grass, and what
makes them uglier still is bordering them again with
some plant. The flowers are much better out in the
open, away from the moisture-devouring shrubs. In
gardening, as in many things in life, let your wits improve
on what is rather below you ; never look at the squire’s big
garden in your neighbourhood, and then try and imitate it
in small. Nothing makes a more charming edging for
beds, if you have gravel paths, than large flat stones ;

MAY 107

they retain the moisture, and many small, low-growing
things feather over the stones and look very well indeed.

May 28th.—After a great deal of practice I really
think I have evolved a way of packing cut flowers
which is both economical and satisfactory. I collect all
the linen-draper’s and milliner’s cardboard boxes that I
possibly can; while these remain good, my friends send
them back to me by parcel post. The flowers are picked
over-night, and put into large pans of water, keeping each
kind in separate bunches. In the morning they are dried,
and the different bunches are rolled up, fairly tightly, in
newspaper—the great point being to exclude the air
entirely both from the stalks and flowers. These
bundles are then laid flat in the boxes; the tighter they
are packed, without actually crushing them, the better
they travel. The lid is then put on, the box tied up
with string, and sent to the station in time for an early
train.

When friends themselves take away the flowers, a box
is unnecessary, as the separate bundles can be tied up
together in some large sheets of newspaper.

May 29th.—An excellent fish sauce is to beat some
cream, and drop into it a little anchovy sauce from a
quite recently opened bottle. It is served cold, in a little
deep dish, not in a sauce-boat.

Here is an Italian receipt for Risotto :—Take a sauce-
pan that holds about a quart, cut up a fair-sized onion
into very small pieces, let it brown to a good golden colour
in some fresh butter. Add the rice, raw and well washed,
and let it cook slowly, stirring well for about five minutes.
Add the saffron (half a thimbleful, well pounded), pour
in the stock by degrees as needed by the quantity of
rice. When the rice is done, draw it to one side, and add
some grated Parmesan cheese. Stir it gently and serve,
sprinkling some Parmesan on the top.

108 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

A good breakfast or lunch dish is called ‘Convent
Eggs’ :—Boil four eggs for ten minutes. Put them in
cold water. Peel, and slice thin, one onion. Put into
a frying-pan 1 oz. of butter; when melted, add the
onion and fry white. Then add a teaspoonful of flour;
mix it well. Add about half a pint of milk, till it forms a
nice white sauce, half a teaspoonful of salt, and a quarter
ditto of pepper. When nicely done, add the eggs—cut into
six pieces each, crossways. Toss them up; when hot,
serve on toast.

Gascony Butter.—Take equal quantities of parsley
(picked from the stalk and parboiled), of anchovies
(washed, boned, and pounded), and of fresh butter. Mix
the ingredients well together, and pass them through a
hair-sieve. Make into pats or balls, ice them, and serve
with hot dry toast.

Here is an old Indian receipt for curry powder :—
1 lb. of coriander seed, 4 oz. of red chilli, 1 oz. of black
pepper, 4 oz. of cummin seed, 3 oz. of fenniquick, 1 Ib. of
turmeric, 1 oz. of dry ginger, and 1 oz. of poppy seed.

For making curry, take 14 lb. of meat cut into dice
(mutton is perhaps the best), 2 oz. of butter, 1 large
onion (the size of a large potato) and a large apple, one
dessertspoonful and a half of curry powder, and a tea-
cupful of stock. First melt the butter; then fry the
onion and apple, cut small, till quite brown. Then add
the curry powder; then the meat, cut into small pieces,
and fry it in the above till quite brown, turning the meat
constantly to keep it from burning. Then put the whole
into a saucepan, add the stock, and place it near the fire
to simmer for 35 or 4 hours. If it gets too dry, add a
little more stock. Mutton wants no butter added at the
end, but chickens and rabbits do.

To boil Patna Rice for Curry.—Put 3 quarts of
spring water in a saucepan to boil, and add $ Ib. of rice.

MAY 109

Let it boil as fast as possible, with the lid off. Keep
skimming it all the time. When done (which means that
it is soft, but with a little hardness left in the middle),
strain it off onto a sieve, and then let cold water run on
it till it becomes quite cold. Put it back into the saucepan
without water, to get hot enough for table. It should take
1 hour to get hot; it will be a bad colour if hurried.

Curry of Ham Toast.—This receipt is useful to
finish up an old ham :—8 oz. of lean ham chopped very
fine, 1 teaspoonful of Harvey and 1 of Worcester sauce,
1 teaspoonful of curry paste, a small piece of butter, a
good tablespoonful of white sauce, and 2 tablespoonfuls
of thick cream. All these should be mixed together and
heated. Cut some rounds of toast, and serve very hot.

The following receipt for bottling green Gooseberries I
think you will find useful. The great point is to pick
them just at the right moment, when neither too large
nor too small. And much depends on waxing the corks
well; so I add the receipt for that.

Bottled Green Gooseberries.—Pick off noses and
stalks, but be careful not to burst the berries. Then fill
some wide-mouthed bottles quite full, tie over the mouths
paper with pricked holes, stand the bottles in boiling
water, and just let the fruit turn colour (no sugar or any-
thing with the fruit). Take the bottles out, and cork
and seal them. The old way was to bury them head
downwards in a garden border ; but if well sealed, to keep
out all air, I do not believe that is necessary. Green
Currants are excellent done the same way, and Morella
Cherries, small Plums, and Damsons ;¥only these must
be ripe.

Wax for Bottles.—2 parts of beeswax, 1 part of resin,
1 part powdered colour (Venetian red). Melt the beeswax
and resin in an old iron saucepan. (Only melt, do not
boil.) Then stir in the colour and let it cool a little, both

110 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

to avoid the pungent vapours and to thicken slightly.
Dip the corked tops of the bottles while holding them
horizontally over the pot, and turn them round, so as to
run the extra stuff into the joint ; they are the better for a
second dip. Leave the remains of the wax to harden in
the pot, which should be used for this purpose only. It can
be melted again at any time, and more added as wanted.

May 80th..-A good deal of real gardening pleasure
and satisfactory ornamental effect is to be had from
growing plants in pots and tubs, vases and vessels of all
kinds, both in small and big gardens. I use large Sea-
kale pots, when they are no longer wanted for the
Sea-kale, by turning them upside down, putting two bits
of slate in the bottom of the pot, some drainage and a
few lumps of turf, and filling it up with really good soil.
As a variety a Rhubarb-pot is useful. If you live near a
pottery, they will turn you out pots to any shape you
fancy. Flat ones, like those used by house-painters,
make a pleasant change, especially for small bulbs ; also
petroleum casks cut in two, burnt inside, then tarred and
painted. It must never, of course, be in any case for-
gotien to have holes large enough to make good drainage.
IT use butter casks treated in the same way, and have
some little oak tubs in which bullion came from America.
These are very strong; and some water-loving plants do
much better in wood, since the evaporation in summer is
not nearly so rapid as from the earthenware. That is an
important thing to remember, both as regards sun and
wind. If the plants are at all delicate, and brought out of
a greenhouse, the pots, when standing out, ought to be
either quite sunk into the earth or shaded. This cannot,
of course, be done in the case of pots placed on a wall or
terrace, or on a stand; constant care about watering is,
therefore, essential. Even in wet weather they often
want more water if the sun comes out, as the rain

MAY IIT

wets the leaves, but hardly affects the soil at all.
On the Continent, where all kinds of pot-cultivation
have been longer practised than in England, flower-
pots are often glazed outside, which keeps the plants
much moister, and makes less necessity for frequent
watering. The French, especially, understand much
better than we do the potting-on of plants. They begin
by putting seeds into pots no bigger than a thimble,
and sinking them in boxes with cocoanut fibre; the little
plants are then potted-on very gradually, never injuring
the roots at all. The merciless way in which gardeners
often tear off the roots collected at the bottom of a pot is
most injurious to the plant. The large red jars that still
bring oil from Italy, covered with their delightful coarse
wicker-work, are useful ornaments in some gardens. They
are glazed inside, and boring a hole in the bottom of
them is not very easy work. They have to be more than
half filled with drainage ; and plants do not do well in
them for more than one season, as the surface of earth
exposed at the top is so small. In old days the oil
merchants in the suburbs of London used to cut them
in two vertically, and stick them against their houses
above their shops, as an advertisement or ornament.
Enthusiastic amateurs will find that they get two very
nice pots by sawing them in half horizontally, just below
the sham handles. The top part, when reversed, requires
the same treatment as was recommended for the Sea-kale
pots. Many different things may be grown for standing
out of doors in the large pots and tubs above described,
and one plant may succeed another. The first rule, I
think, is to grow in them those plants which do not grow
especially well in your own local soil. To put into a pot
what is flourishing much better in a bed a few yards off
is, to my mind, a mistake.

I grow in pots large old plants of Geraniums—Henry

112 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Jacoby is especially good. They are kept on in the
greenhouse from year to year, their roots tied up in moss
and crowded into a pot or box with no earth and very
little water through the winter ; early in April they are
potted-up and protected by mats in a pit, as we have no
room for them in the greenhouse. This causes them to
be somewhat pot-bound, and they flower brilliantly during
the latter part of the summer. French Marguerites (the
yellow and the white) with large leaves are good pot-plants
early in the year—far prettier than the narrow-leaved
kinds. A double Pomegranate I have had for many
years in a pot; and if pruned out in the summer, it
flowers well. The large, old-fashioned, oak-leaved, sticky
Cape Sweet Geranium, which has a handsomer flower
than the other kinds, makes a very good outdoor pot-plant.
In potting-up strong, growing plants that are toremain in
the pots for some time, it is useful to put some broken-up
bones with the crocks at the bottom of the pots for the
roots to cling to them.

Fuchsias, especially the old-fashioned fulgens, are
satisfactory. Carnations—Raby Castle, Countess of Paris,
and Mrs. Reynolds Hole—I grow in pots, and they do
extremely well; they must be layered early in July, and
answer best if potted up in September and just protected
from severe frosts. This year we took upa large clump of
Montbretias out of a dry sunny bed of Cape bulbs in the
kitchen garden, just as they were coming through the
ground, and dropped them into a large Sea-kale pot.
They flowered exceedingly well, and in September we
put them back in the dry border to die down. In fine
summers Myrtles and Oleanders flower well with us in
tubs, not in the open ground. We treat Oleanders as
they do inGermany—cut them back moderately in October,
and dry them off, keeping them in a coach-house, warm
shed, or wherever severe frosts will not reach them.

MAY 1

When quite dry, they stand a moderate amount of frost.
Then in March they are brought out, the ground is
stirred and mulched, and they are taken into a greenhouse
and brought on a bit. In May they are thickly covered
with good strong horse-manure and copiously watered.
At the end of the month they are stood out in the open
on a low wall. During May, June, and July they cannot
have too much water; after that they want much less, or
the leaves turn yellow and drop off. Campanula pyrami-
dalis (see ‘ English Flower Garden’), a biennial, does well
in pots, if shaded—blue and white both in one pot, or apart.
The seedlings have to be potted up in autumn (plants a
year old); as with the Canterbury Bells, if you cut
off the fading flowers the flowering season is much pro-
longed. Canterbury Bells (Campanula mediwm) make
charming pot-plants for large rooms or corridors in
May or June. They are annuals, and the seed can
be sown out of doors in March or April, keeping the
seedlings well thinned, transplanting in the autumn, and
potting-up the following spring (see ‘English Flower
Garden’). If strong crowns of Campanula persicifolia
are potted up in autumn, they force beautifully in a
moderate greenhouse in spring, and are most satisfactory
for picking or otherwise.

Some years I grow Solanwm jasnuinoides over bent
wires in pots; they are rather pretty. Clethra (Sweet
Pepper Bush), a small North American shrub, we lifted
from the reserve garden in June and put into a pot, and
it flowered very well. The variety of plants which can
be experimented upon for growing in pots out of doors
in summer is almost endless. Love-lies-bleeding (Ama-
ranthus caudatus) is an annual; but if sown in January,
and very well grown-on as a fine single specimen plant,
it looks handsome and uncommon in a green glazed
pot or small tub. Nothing we grow in pots is more

I

114 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

satisfactory than the old-fashioned Calceolaria ampleai-
caulis. It does not grow to any perfection in the beds,
the soil being too dry; but, potted, it makes a splendid
show through the late summer and autumn months. A
red-brown kind, little grown now, which I brought from
Ireland, and which I cannot name, also succeeds very
well. They both want potting-up in good soil in April.
The shrubby Veronicas (Speciosa rubra, Imperialis, and
the variegated Andersoni) I grow in pots because they
flower beautifully in the autumn ; and the drowsy bumble-
bees love to lie on them, in the sunshine, when the
Sedum spectabile is passing away. They are not quite
hardy with us, as they cannot withstand the long, dry, cold
springs. This in itself justifies the growing them in
pots ; in mild, damp districts they are large shrubs. The
small bushy Michaelmas Daisies we put into pots at the
end of July, and they fill up blank spaces on the wall
late in the year.

The blue Cape Agapanthus everybody grows in tubs.
They have to be rather pot-bound and kept dry in the
winter, to flower well ; as the flower-buds form, they want
to be well watered and a weekly dose of liquid manure.
Hydrangeas I find difficult to grow when planted out.
The common kinds do exceedingly well in tubs, in half-
shady places, if they get a good deal of water. A varie-
gated half-hardy shrub called Procosma variegata makes
a showy and yet restrained pot-plant. Large standard
Myrtles I have had covered with blooms in August in
tubs. My large old plant, which I had had many years,
was killed this spring by being turned out of the room it
had wintered in too early, because we came from London
sooner than usual. The great difficulty in small places
is housing these large plants in winter. They do not
want much protection, but they must have some; and the
death of large old plants is grievous. We have just built

MAY 115

a new greenhouse, which we are going to try with no
heating beyond a lamp-stove in very cold weather. If I
lived in the country in the winter, I should grow small
Evergreens in pots and try various experiments, which
are of no use to me, as I live in London. In many cases
the plants would not get injured by frost if one pot were
sunk inside another.

12

116 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

JUNE

Hands and fingers after weeding—Shrub-pruning—Boxes for birds—
Robins in greenhouse—‘ Burning Bush’—Two Polygonums—
Strawberries—Geraniums and cuttings—Cactuses—Freesia bulbs
—Gloriosa swperba—Luncheon dishes—Cucumbers.

June 2nd.—It must be admitted that one of the great
drawbacks to gardening and weeding is the state into
which the hands and fingers get. Unfortunately, one’s
hands belong not only to oneself, but to the family, who do
not scruple to tell the gardening amateur that her appear-
ance is ‘revolting.’ Constant washing and always keeping
them smooth and soft by a never-failing use of vaseline—
or, still better, a mixture of glycerine and starch, kept ready
on the washstand to use after washing and before drying
the hands—are the best remedies I know. Old dog-skin
or old kid gloves are better for weeding than the so-called
gardening gloves; and for many purposes the wash-
leather housemaid’s glove, sold at any village shop, is
invaluable. Good gardeners tell you never to cut flowers
except with a sharp knife. This is good advice for shrubs
or pot-plants, the clean cut being better for the plants ;
but I advise that the knife should be on a steel chain a
foot or so long, with a good pair of garden hook-shaped
scissors at the other end—for the cutting of annuals or
lately planted plants with a knife, in light soil, is very
much to beavoided. The smallest pull loosens the roots,
and immediate death, in hot weather, is the result. Another
advantage of knife and scissors together on the chain is

JUNE rLy

that they are more easy to find when mislaid, or lost in
the warm and bushy heart of some plant.

June 4th.—Now, and even a little earlier, is the great
pruning-time of the year for all spring-flowering shrubs.
No doubt this cutting-out may be especially important in
a light soil such as ours, where things flower themselves to
death, like pot-bound plants. It is rather tiresome work ;
it requires one person to cut out the old wood and
slightly cut back the topmost branches with a long-
handled nipper, and another to stand at a little distance
and give directions. Without this precaution, the tree or
shrub would often become lop-sided and unsightly. It is
impossible for the man who is cutting to see what should
be taken out. Choisya ternata must be gone over and
cut back severely, in spite of all one may have gathered
from it while in flower. Also with Lilacs, Laburnums,
Weigelias, Crab-apples, Double Cherries, Viburnum, and
Pyrus japonica, this pruning—at any rate, in light soils—
must never be neglected or forgotten. Very often only a
little cutting-out is required. If it is done too late, it does
more harm than good, and injures next year’s bloom.
Clematis montana succeeds much better if the young
growth is cut off every year, which prevents it from
getting tangled and matted, and all going to leaf instead
of blossom. It is the same with Honeysuckles and
Brooms. We sow the Brooms—white, yellow, and red
and yellow—every year. They can always be transplanted
when quite young to where they are to flower, and a good
supply of young plants is so useful.

The bird-boxes this spring have been well used by my
little couples. Fly-catchers and Wrens never fail; but
this year we have had rather an uncommon bird, a Red-
start, and in the nest are seven eggs, though Bewick asserts
that they only lay four or five. The eggs are pretty
in colour, like the Hedge-sparrow’s. The Red-start's

118 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

eges are a little longer and narrower in shape than
the Hedge-sparrow’s. A pair of Robins have hatched out
three families this year in my greenhouse—fourteen
young Robins! They began early in March, and built on
a top-shelf ; when the little ones were hatched, the old
birds were so tame that they did not mind at all our
putting the nest into a deep pot and placing it near the
window for them to feed their young more conveniently.
We also thought that in the pot it would attract less the
attention of a terrible bird-killing old cat we have. He
stays near a nest, scratching, till the parent birds are in
such a frenzy of agitation and fear that they kick the
young ones out of the nest ; he then devours them at his
leisure.

To those who have room I recommend the Venetian
Sumach (Rhus cotinus), but it is not worth growing if it
is crowded up. The most perfect way to grow itis to
put the young plant in a well and richly made hole in the
lawn, or at the edge of a shrubbery, the formality of which
you wish to break. As it grows, cut away the turf from
under it, and mulch it every winter ; this makes it grow
quickly. When it gets into a good big plant, leave off
mulching, and dress it with chalk, which will make it
flower and bear its lovely feathery seeds in July. In a
good sunny situation it will turn a flaming red colour,
which is the reason for its English name of the ‘ Burning
Bush.’ It does better in moderately damp soils than with
us, but a little care will make it grow anywhere. It is
well adapted for picking and putting into water, as the
leaves have a faint aromatic smell; but itis not suited to
very small gardens, for it spreads and takes up too much
room. Crowding spoils its great characteristic of rooting
into the ground all round.

The finer sorts of Clematis (see ‘ English Flower
Garden’) only do fairly well in our soil; and till I gave

JUNE 119

them plenty of chalk they often died. All the large
Jackmam tribe (see nurserymen’s catalogues) want
cutting back to the ground very early in the year, before
they begin to break in the spring ; but they are worth all
care and trouble. Many gardeners do not agree with me,
but I am very fond of specimen plants grown in holes
cut in grass, if they are planted with care, to group
with shrubs behind them, and so as not to present a
dotted-about appearance. In large gardens there are
places enough—in shrubberies, by the side of water, or
elsewhere—where these single specimens can grow
healthily. In really small gardens they take too much
room. In medium-sized gardens they become a feature
and an interest. Several plants, besides the Venetian
Sumach before mentioned, are such fine growers that
they are well worth an individual place to show them
off :—

Polygonum cuspidatum and P. sacchalinense are very
effective, and grow splendidly in dry soils if the out-
side suckers are pulled out every spring; they want no
other care. Bocconia cordata (Plume Poppy), a Japanese
plant, also wants no other treatment ; and in this way the
old shoots grow up finer and stronger each year. They are
herbaceous, like the Polygonums, and it is best not to cut
down their hollow stems till the spring. Leycesteria
formosa has a good growth ; its uncommon brown flowers
come late in the summer. (Kerria japonica, especially
the single one mentioned before; the Privets, the golden
one and the Alexandrian are the best.) Tamarisks, so
seldom grown away from the sea, which are very pretty,
especially the one with tiny pink flowers that come out in
the spring (Z. parviflora, I believe it is called) ; and many
hardy Bamboos can all be grown separately as specimen
plants; as also the two Eulalias, japonica and zebrina,
the tall Japanese grasses. The Arwndo donax is the

120 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

lovely tall cane that grows in the ditches in Italy. But
beware how you move it, if once you get it to grow; it
does not at all like being disturbed. Acanthws in full
sun is very handsome, and grows large in rather a
moist place; so does the Giant Parsnip, but it is only a
biennial.

June 9th.—The Strawberry season is beginning. For
many years this fruit was poison to me; now it gives me
pleasure to think that I live almost entirely upon it for
some weeks in the summer, eating it three times a day,
and very little else, according to the practice of Linneeus,
as quotedin March. Itis of great importance that anyone
who has room to grow Strawberries at all should grow
several varieties—early, medium, or late (see catalogues).
For ices, creams, jams, &c., I greatly recommend some of
the high-flavoured, old-fashioned Hautboys; they are not
very easy to get. The fruit grown on heavy soils round
London for the market is often very tasteless; but one
must work away with books and experience to get good
Strawberries and a fairly long succession of them. In
growing Strawberries, everything depends on making
some new rows every year; layering the runners early,
too, makes a great difference in the young plants the
next year. ‘Dainty Dishes’ has some instructive old-
fashioned receipts for Strawberry jam. Strawberries make
an excellent compote if boiling syrup is poured over
them. Raspberries are much better treated in this way.
Currants require stewing. It improves all summer
compotes to ice them well before serving.

I do not at all despise planting out the old-fashioned
scarlet and crimson Geraniums—Pelargoniums, they ought
to be called. Old plants are very much better than the
small cuttings ; but I have a few of these as well, and pots
full of cuttings of the sweet-leaved kinds, of which there
are sO many varieties, and which are planted out the first

JUNE 121

week in June. Among red Geraniums, nothing is so fine
and satisfactory as Henry Jacoby; it is a very steady
bloomer, and has a fine rich colour. When you are
planting out your Geraniums and cuttings, do not forget
that some must be kept back in their pots and given
constant care and attention all through the summer for
late autumn and winter flowering in the greenhouse. We
keep our plants for winter in a cold frame through the
summer, and carefully pick off the flower-buds. Raspail
is an excellent double variety for winter picking. One
the nurserymen call ‘ Raspail Improved’ is perhaps what
it professes to be, though I do not see very much
difference. It is because I live in London in the winter
that I so much recommend double Geraniums, as the
flowers of the single kind require to be gummed before
they are packed. If not, they arrive only a little heap of
scarlet petals in the paper, beautiful and lovely, but quite
useless for putting into water.

My old books taught me to take an interest in Cactuses,
which in the early part of the century were much grown.
They are very easy of cultivation, and well worth growing
for those who spend June and July in their gardens.
A succession must be aimed at, as the drawback is that
the blooms only last a short time. The old Cereus
speciosissimus surpasses in beauty and splendour any
garden plant I know, with its brilliant scarlet petals shot
with the richest purple and its handsome white tassel
of stamens. Another beautiful flower is the large white
night-flowering Cereus ; and if brought, when just about to
bloom, into the hall or sitting-room, its delicious perfume
pervades the whole house for twenty-four hours, if not for
longer. Although Cactuses are very easy to cultivate, yet
what they require they must have, or they do not flower
at all, and then gardeners throw them away. Wholesome
neglect is better than too much misdirected care; they

122 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

want to be kept very dry, and not too warm all through
the winter, but quite free from frost. In April they are
re-potted, if they seem to require it; but that is seldom.
Once started into growth, they want heat, light, sun, a
little nourishment, and plenty of watering and syringing,
with rain-water if possible; hard chalky water is bad for
them. When they have done flowering, I plant them out
in a good warm border till the middle of August. This
does them a lot of good, and helps them very much to
make new growth ; they should be well syringed overhead
while growing. Anyone really interested in Cactuses will
learn all they want to know in alittle book called ‘ Cactus
Culture for Amateurs,’ by W. Watson. The old and long-
neglected taste for growing Cactuses is certainly reviving,
and some of the finest kinds can be grown with very little
trouble or expense. Mr. Watson is Assistant Curator of
the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, where there is a large
collection of Cactuses. He writes as one who knows, and
the book is full of practical instructions.

I have a great many Stapelias, South African plants
rather resembling miniature Cactuses in their growth,
and requiring the same treatment. They are very curious,
and are described in a modern book translated from the
German, called the ‘ Natural History of Plants,’ as belong-
ing to a group of plants called ‘indoloid.’ Sometimes the
scent of these South African Stapelias resembles that of
decomposing mammalian flesh, sometimes of rotten fish,
&c. This, of course, attracts insects. Flowers provided
with indoloid scents resemble animal corpses in their
colouring, having usually livid spots, violet streaks,
and red-brown veins on a greenish or a fawn-coloured
background. All the same, the flowers are to me
curious and rather beautiful, so entirely unlike anything
else.

JUNE see

This month is the time to sort out the Freesia bulbs
that have been drying in the sun, in their pots, laid on one
side on the shelf of the greenhouse. The largest bulbs
are re-potted now or in July in good strong loamy soil, but
hardly watered at all till they begin to show through the
earth. The next-sized bulbs are potted a month later.
When the quite small ones are put into a box to grow on
for next year they are too small to flower. Early potting-
up of Freesias is very important if they are to flower
early.

June 20th.—For anyone with a small stove or warm
greenhouse I can thoroughly recommend the growing of
the Gloriosa swperba or Creeping Lily. It is a lovely
and curious flower; it lasts very long in water, and
flowers continuously for two or three months. Its culti-
vation is simple enough : buy the bulbs in April, pot them
up in good Lily soil (see Johnson’s ‘Gardener’s Dic-
tionary’ for this and all other greenhouse and stove
cultivation of plants), start them in heat, and grow them
up wires or thin branching sticks, or anything that gives
them support; water them well while growing; and as
they begin to go off after flowering, and the leaves turn
yellow, dry them gradually till they have quite died down.
Then lay the pots on their sides, and keep them quite
dry, but in a warm temperature, till you re-pot them the
following spring. The flowers are lovely—crimson and
yellow, with crinkled, turned-back petals, and they wedge
so well in small flat vases.

In the last century the disciples of Linneeus took great
pleasure botanically in this plant, as the pistil bends at.
nearly right angles in a most curious way, to insert its
stigma amongst the stamens; and it is a good illustra-
tion of the sex of plants. It is figured in that old book
IT alluded to in March of Erasmus Darwin’s, called the

124 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

‘Botanic Garden,’ and in the poem named ‘ The Loves of
the Plants’ it is thus spoken of :—

Proud Gloriosa led three chosen swains,

The blushing captives of her virgin chains,

When Time’s rude hand a bark of wrinkles spread
Round her weak limbs, and silver’d o’er her head ;
Three other youths her riper years engage,

The flatter’d victims of her wily age.

I must acknowledge that I have watched attentively
a great many blooms of ‘proud Gloriosa,’ and have
admired her immensely, but I never could see the differ-
ence in the length of the stamens, or that first one set of
three and then the other set of three came to maturity.

I consider it quite as essential for amateurs who really
care about their gardens to grow out-of-the-way plants in
the greenhouse and conservatory as in the garden. Why
should only just a few easily grown and eternally repeated
plants, everywhere the same, be alone chosen from the
wonderful and beautiful and abundant supply that Nature
provides us with, while many rarer sorts, with a little care
and knowledge, are quite suitable for growing under glass ?
A study of Veitch’s or Cannell’s catalogues, and looking
up the names in Johnson’s ‘Gardener’s Dictionary,’ makes
a selection quite easy, even if you cannot visit any of the
first-class excellent nurseries in summer, or if you do not
possess any of the old illustrated books.

June 27th.—F or those who live in the country, or those
who spend the early summer months in towns and have
their flowers sent up, no family of plants are more useful
than the Campanulas (all described in the ‘ English
Flower Garden’). Perhaps the one we could least do
without is the beautiful C. persicifolia. It takes little
room, is a true perennial, and divides well in the autumn.
In light soils it flowers better if treated as a biennial and
sown in a seed bed annually, so as to have a good supply of

JUNE 125

young plants every year. The seed sown in June or July
can be planted out in October and potted up the autumn
of the second year for flowering in pots in the early
spring in a greenhouse. They are then good strong
plants, and several can be put in one fairly large pot.
C. grandis is a stronger and coarser plant. It is far
more beautiful for picking if grown in a poor soil and
under the shade of bushes or trees. But it is hardly
worth growing in a small garden, though it is what I call
a friend among plants ; it gives a good deal, and requires
so little, and looks cool and beautiful when picked and
placed by itself in a large glass bowl filled with water.
Its tiny rosette-like leaf-growth is also useful, attractive,
and ornamental, especially in the autumn. It travels as
well as the other Campanulas, only it must be picked in
bud. The flowers expand well in water; so do those of
the common Canterbury Bell.

As asummer luncheon dish this Mayonnaise soufflé of
crab is rather out of the common :—Slightly butter the
lining of a souffié-case, pin a buttered band of paper
round rather high, and season the eatable part of a crab
with pepper, salt, oil, and vinegar ; whip some nice aspic
jelly, and put a little in the bottom of the lining. Make
a bed of Mayonnaise sauce on the top of the aspic, put in
the crab, then some more chopped aspic; it should be
about three inches above the tin lining. Stand it in the
ice-box till wanted. Put the lining in the case, sprinkle
with fried breadcrumbs, and serve with a plate of chopped
aspic jelly apart.

A less complicated luncheon dish is as follows :—
Take some ripe tomatoes, equal-sized; cut a round hole
and scoop out a portion of the middle, fill in with cold
minced chicken and Mayonnaise sauce, put some aspic in
the dish, and serve the tomatoes, on round pieces of fried
bread, cold.

126 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

The following fresh chutney is good with any roast
or cold meat:—EHqual parts of cucumber, onion, and
sultanas chopped very fine, some salt and cayenne.
Moisten with vinegar, and press for two hours. It will
keep some time: when wanted for use, warm in a little
gravy and let it get cold.

A very much prettier way than the usual English one
of serving cauliflower is to break it up in pieces large
enough for one helping; boil them very lightly, so that
they should be quite firm and dry, almost crisp. It
quite spoils them if they are soft and sodden. Serve apart,
in a good-sized boat, some white creamy sauce into which
you grate a little Parmesan cheese.

Small pieces of cauliflower put into clear soup, and
Parmesan cheese handed apart, is a good way of using up
cauliflowers that are just beginning to run to seed.

Young onions boiled in clear soup give it an unusual
and gelatinous consistency.

Raw sliced cucumber is .quite a different dish if cut
very thin and soaked in salt and water for two or three
hours before it is wanted. Itis then drained and pressed,
and served with oil, vinegar, and pepper, in the usual
way.

There are several ways of cooking cucumbers; I
suggest the following :—Peel and cut up a cucumber into
pieces about two inches long, and divide each piece into
two. Soak them for two or three hours in brown sugar
and vinegar. Stew them in a little stock, and serve them
as a vegetable.

Another way is to stew these pieces in a little butter.
Make the sauce apart by boiling the peel in a little milk
and butter, rub it through a fine sieve, mix in a little
yelk of egg and pour over the pieces.

A third way is to take a large old cucumber, peel it,
cut off the two ends, and boil it very lightly. When done,

JUNE 127

make an incision down the middle, not quite to the two
ends. Scoop out the seeds, and fill in the hollow with a
light stuffing of suet, herbs, breadcrumbs, and egg. Serve
it whole, like a rolly-poly pudding, with a yellow Dutch
sauce round it.

I find, all through the year, that a compote is a much
more popular way of cooking fruit than in a tart. The
great secret of making compotes is to stew some fruits,
and only to pour boiling syrup over others. For instance,
Red Currants are not good unless stewed for some time in
an earthenware dish in the oven. Raspberries are quite
spoilt by this treatment.

128 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

JULY

The Welsh Poppy —Astrantias —Old Green Peas —Red Currants—The
Madonna Lily, L’épée de la Vierge—The value of the reserve
garden—An English summer’s day—Light soils and dry summers
—Other people’s gardens—Notebooks— Sunny lawns —Duteh
gardens—Fountains and water-tanks—Lobelia cardinalis—
Watering out of doors—Two hardy shrubs.

July 6th.—One of the prettiest weeds that we have in
our modern gardens, and which alternates between being
our greatest joy and our greatest torment, is the Welsh
Poppy. It succeeds so well in this dry soil that it sows
itself everywhere; but when it stands up, with its pro-
fusion of yellow flowers well above its bed of bright
green leaves, in some fortunate situation where it can not
only be spared, but encouraged and admired, it is a real
pleasure. It is not a Poppy at all, but a Meconopsis. It
is quite easy to distinguish between the two, once having
grasped the fact that the seed-vessels of the entire Poppy
tribe are flat on the top, whereas the seed-vessels of the
Meconopsis are pointed. There are several varieties of
Meconopsis, all very desirable, and to be found, as usual,
well described in the ‘ English Flower Garden.’

Their cultivation is a little more difficult than that of
the ordinary annual and biennial, so one hardly ever sees
them anywhere, but they are well worth the little extra
trouble. Among the many small plants of easy cultiva-
tion and persistent flowering, Astrantias are very useful,
especially in light soils, where things flower and are over

Be be,

OEM 129

so quickly. There are several shades; I have a pink
anda green. They have a most refined beauty of their
own, and last well in water. They are best grown from
seed, and are well worth every care. Any soil will suit
them, and they will grow in half-shade or full sun.

Some dry summers Green Peas do very badly with
us; they dry up so quickly. We all know the hesitating
remark to the cook: ‘The Peas were not so good last
night.’ ‘No, m’m, they are getting old.’ When they
do get old, the following is an original French receipt for
stewed Peas, which is very good indeed:—Put the Peas
into a saucepan with a good-sized Cabbage Lettuce cut up,
a white Onion, a sprig of Parsley, four ounces of butter
kneaded with flour ; put the butter in small lumps on the
Peas, also a very little salt and a piece of white sugar.
Cover the saucepan, and let it simmer slowly for about
three-quarters of an hour.

Currants ripen very early with us. It is a good plan,
in order to keep them for eating when other fruit is not
so plentiful, to tie the whole bush up in coarse muslin
just as the Currants are getting ripe. This protects them
from birds and from insects, and they hang well on into
September, and are perfectly good. Black Currants will
not stand the same treatment.

The following is a good receipt for Red Currant jelly,
one of the preserves best worth making at home :—
Gather the Currants on a dry day. Strip them off their
stalks, and squeeze the juice through a cloth. Leave the
juice to stand in the cellar for twenty-four hours; then
pour it into another cloth, carefully leaving the thick
sediment behind. For each pound of juice allow one
pound of powdered white sugar (not bought ready
pounded, but done at home). Put the juice’on the fire
in the preserving-pan, and keep stirring it from the first
with a silver spoon, adding the sugar, which should

K

Pee, Ree y A MGOTE

130 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

be standing close by, in spoonfuls. When the sugar
is all added and dissolved, it will be necessary to
take off the rising scum with a flat sieve-spoon, very
well scalded and cleaned previously; and by placing
a little jelly on a saucer it will be seen by the consistency
when it has jellied. As soon as there is a sign of this
take the pan off the fire, let it stand five or ten minutes,
and fill the jelly glasses, which should previously have
been well sulphured, and be standing ready face down-
wards. Next day they should be covered with rounds of
paper soaked in brandy. Half a teaspoonful of brandy
should be sprinkled over each glass, and then they should
be tied or gummed up in the usual way.

July 8th.—I consider no trouble too great, whether the
garden be large or small, to grow the beautiful stately
Madonna Lily (Liliwm candidum). It requires very
different treatment from other Lilies, and flourishes in
rich, heavy soils in full sun, where many Lilies would
fail. Gardening books often tell you it is fatal to move
these Lilies, but I think this has arisen from gardeners
moving or disturbing them when they have ‘done’ their
borders in October or November, and when the Lilies have
made an autumn growth; moving them then is fatal.
When I used to leave them alone, they made an excellent
top growth in spring, but dried up and died down
without flowering. What I now do when they begin to
die down some time this month, whether they have
flowered or not, is to dig them up carefully with a fork,
remove all offsets, re-make and manure the ground well,
mixing with it some brick rubbish or chalk, and then
replace the large bulbs, planting them rather deep, and
not too close together. In this way every bulb flowers.
A little liquid manure helps them to open well when they
are in bud the following June. The small offsets are
put into a nursery apart, and many of them will flower

JULY 131

the following year in a way that does admirably for
picking.

A few years ago I brought from Paris some bulbs of
Ornithogalum pyramidale, the flower-spikes of which are
sold at the end of June in the Paris flower market under
the name of L’épée de la Vierge. I have never seen the
plant grown anywhere in England as I have grown it,
and yet in every way it is quite one of the most satis-
factory flowers for picking that I know. If you gather it
just as one flower is coming out, the whole of the long
spike grows and flowers in water up to the very top,
bending and curling about, and assuming the most
graceful curves. No one can grow a better flower plant
to send to London. It has one fault in the garden—the
leaves droop and turn rather spotty and yellow before the
flower comes quite to its prime; but this defect can
indeed be forgiven for the sake of its many merits. I
cultivate it nearly as I do the above-mentioned Lilies ;
only, when the bulbs are dug up, we place the small ones
at once in a nursery, but the large ones are well dried in
the sun and not replanted till October. A mulching
when they begin to show through in the spring does
them good. Mr. Barr sells the bulbs, but I cannot say if
his are as fine as those I brought from Paris six or seven
years ago. I know no summer-flowering shrub so beauti-
ful as the Hydrangea pamculata grandiflora. I have
tried over and over again to grow it, but it does badly
and then dies. It is not the soil only, for I once saw a
magnificent specimen growing under a wall at Ascot,
where the soil is the same as ours. I suppose it never
has had quite a good enough place. It should be cut
back hard every spring, and, when growing freely, wants
much watering ; [am told that constant applications of
soot-water do it good. I daresay I shall succeed in
time.

Kk 2

We ay te ot aa) ee “1 ee
! ‘to 110 NaS

132. POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

July 10th.—This is about the time we move our things
from the reserve garden, spoken of before, and from the
late-sown seed beds, and plant into the borders and
square beds those amiable autumn annuals that do
not seem to mind moving at all, such as French Mari-
golds, Tagetes, Everlastings, Scabious, &c. The Phloxes,
Michaelmas Daisies, and early low-growing Chrysanthe-
mums, grown in the reserve garden, move just as well in
warm, dry weather as in wet, only, of course, they must
be well and continuously watered till the weather
changes and they have taken hold. The large Sedum
spectabile, so loved by the bees in September, also moves
perfectly in the same way, and, in a large mass, makes
avery handsome autumn plant. JI am sure that the
system of reserve garden and moving plants and seed-
lings in July can be extended and experimented upon to
almost any extent. Next year I must try it with the
Veronica spicata—white, blue, and pink. They are very
pretty things when flowering well and healthily, and
they come into bloom at a time of year when herbaceous
plants are scarce. Campanula turbinata, blue and white,
are useful for the same reason.

Alstroemerias do very well on dry, light soil; they
want mulching in spring, but are no trouble at all when
once established. A. awrantiaca is the easiest to grow,
but A. chilensis is the most beautiful. The seeds of the
best flowers are worth keeping and sowing, to improve
the colour and size of the flowers. The white one I have
not yet succeeded in making grow from seeds, but I saw
it at the Horticultural Show, and it was most beautiful
and delicate. I find that buying the bulbous rootlets
dried is no use at all, they do not grow. They do not
mind moving in August after flowering, and they are
best increased as Lilies of the Valley are—by digging out
square pieces, filling in with good soil and dropping in

JULY 133

the pieces cut out where they are wanted somewhere
else without disturbing the earth that clings to them.
If you ever try to force your own Lilies of the Valley,
pick out the best crowns, but never put them into the
greenhouse till frost has been on them, and never mulch
outdoor Lilies of the Valley before March, and then only
with leaf mould. As Lilies are an early spring flower,
you will find they do better under a wall facing east than
anywhere else.

July 14th—How beautiful are the really hot, lovely
English summer’s days. They come sometimes, and they
are exquisite; nothing beats them. Why, oh! why, can
- I never enjoy such things without that tinge of sadness
which moderns call morbidness? It does no good, but
I think of someone who is ill, or of those masses and
masses of people in that dreary great city so close. AsI
enjoy my garden alone, with the beauty and the flowers,
the flood of summer light and the intense pleasure of it,
I long to do something, and longing generally resolves
itself into picking flowers for somebody. This little
poem by Paul Verlaine seems to give the colour of it all,
and the pain :—

LA VIE

Le ciel est par-dessus le toit,
Si bleu, si calme!

Un arbre par-dessus le toit
Berce sa palme.

La cloche dans le ciel qu’on voit
Doucement tinte,

Un oiseau sur l’arbre qu’on voit
Chante sa plainte.

Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est 14,
Simple et tranquille ;

Cette paisible rumeur-la
Vient de la ville.

eS OA REE

134. POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Qu’as-tu fait, O toi que voila,
Pleurant sans cesse—

Dis, qu’as-tu fait, toi que voila,
De ta jeunesse ?

July 15th.—July is a very busy month in all gardens.
The borders must be cleared and replanted, the seeds
of perennials have to be gathered and sown, and many
other things require attention. The Delphiniums may
bravely be cut down after flowering; it does them no
harm, and they often break again and have stray
flowering sprays in the autumn. Some of the best seed
should be sown every year. The same with the Ver-
bascums; if cut down, they flower again, in rather a
different way, but very charmingly, in the autumn. July
is also the great time for sowing perennials, or perennials
that are treated as biennials; and when you have fine
flowers or good colours, it is quite worth while to mark
the flowers by tying a piece of bass or coloured wool
round the stalk. These little white ties are recognised
and respected by the gardeners while clearing the
borders, a work which it is essential to do in July.
I sow a great many things every year, and find them
most useful---Gaillardias, Coreopsis lanceolata, Snap-
dragons (Antirrhinums). Oh, how useful and beautiful
are the tall yellow and the tall white Snapdragons !
They can be played with in so many ways: potted up in
the autumn, grown and flowered in a greenhouse, cut
back and planted out in the spring to flower again,
admirable to send away; in fact, they have endless
merits, and in a large clump in front of some dark
corner or shrub they look very handsome indeed. They
are lovely picked and on the dinner-table, especially the
yellow Snapdragons, but, like many other things, they
just want a little care and cultivation, which they often
do not get; and they ought to be sown every April, and

JULY 135

again in July. The smaller the garden, the more
essential are these plants for people who like having
flowers to pick; but I warn everyone against those
terrible inventions of seedsmen, the Dwarf Antirrhinums ;
they have all the attributes of a dwarf, and are impish ©
and ugly. The flower is far too large for the stalk, and
they are, to my mind, entirely without merit. July is
the time I take up both the English and the Spanish
Trises, which makes them do ever so much better. The
English Irises are best planted again at once, only taking
off the small bulbs. The Spanish Ivises are best dried in
the sun and replanted in September. In both cases the
small bulbs are planted in rows in the kitchen garden ;
they take up little room, and in this way the stock is
increased. In our soil, unless treated in this way, they
dwindle, cease flowering, and ultimately disappear. I
lost many from not knowing this in my early gardening
days, when I was certainly green in judgment. The
Spanish Iris likes a dry place in full sun; the English
Iris does best in half-shade, and likes moisture if it can
get it, but flowers well without; the leaves are what
suffer most from dryness—long, succulent, moisture-
loving things that they are.

July 17th—We have had a most unusually hot dry
summer, and to go into the garden is absolute pain to me,
for all the trouble and labour of the year seem more or
less wasted. Plants are miserably forced into bloom, to
go off almost immediately ; and it is little consolation to
know a week’s rain will make many plants beautiful
again, for the especial beauty of early summer is over.
July and August are always trying months here. The
soil is so very light, and one must pay the penalty ;
even the heavy soils, I am told, are suffering much
this year.

One ought, too, to study with great interest and take

136 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

note of what survives, and even does better in these
very dry years. That handsome, rather coarse-growing
perennial, Buphthalmum cordifoliwm, now called Telekia
speciosa—as if one such name were not enough for a
stout-growing composite—looked shrivelled and unhappy
last month, but it has flowered better than usual, and it
is a handsome plant. The pretty feathery Gypsophila.
paniculata never suffers from dryness, it has such a
splendid big tap-root. The Gaillardias, moved from the
seed bed in spring, have done very well in full sun.

The Coreopsis grandiflora blazes in the sunlight. I
save a little seed from the largest flowers of both of
these, and sow them every year, so as to have a
continual supply of young plants. It is not to avoid
buying fresh seeds that I mark the best flowers of some,
but because by this means, and by saving only from the
hest flowers, I get really better plants.

My Carnations are much less good than usual this
year, but I cannot blame the weather for this. I stupidly
followed the advice in some of the gardening papers last
year of leaving the layers on the old plants till April. I
shall never do so again; here it does not answer at all;
but I shall layer them as early as possible, take them off
in October, and make up the bed then. It is a very good
plan to plant a row of young Carnation plants in the
kitchen garden, some distance apart, so that they may be
layered earlier than in the beds.

July 25th.—Not the least delightful part, in my opinion,
of the growing knowledge of gardening is the appreciative
visiting of the gardens of others. On first going into a
garden one knows by instinct, as a hound scents the fox,
if it is going to be interesting or not. One’s eyes are
sharp, and a joyful glow of satisfaction comes over one
on seeing something not by any means necessarily new,
but unknown to oneself. When looking through old

JULY 137

books or modern catalogues, one feels one has nothing in
one’s garden, but I must confess that visiting other
people’s gardens very often makes me feel I really have
a very fair collection. A notebook is a most important
companion on gardening expeditions. I use metallic
paper, to ensure a permanent record, and an ordinary
pencil. I write the date and name of the place, then jot
down the names of plants and general observations. I
have also kept a kind of gardening journal for many
years, making notes three or four times in the month,
and on the opposite page I keep lists of any plants I buy
or bring home from friends, with the date; noting the
deaths the following year is instructive. I have lately
had a rain-gauge given me. This is a great interest and
amusement, especially where rain-water is always in
demand and often running short. I did not know the
importance of rain-water when first we came to live
here; and though we have lots of roofing, we are not
sufficiently provided with underground tanks. Our small
ones are supplemented now as much as possible by
petroleum barrels sunk into the ground, and the water-
shoot from the roof allowed to pour into them. You can
connect this first barrel with others by a little piece of
lead piping, and so increase the storage.

For those who have not got very good memories for
the names of plants, I strongly recommend them, if they
can draw, to make a little coloured sketch, however small,
on the page of a gardening book next the name of the
plant. This will be found a great help to the memory ;
I began gardening so late in life that I had to get all the
help I could. I have lately been visiting what I call
intelligent gardens, and will make a few remarks about
them. In one place where Roses grow well I saw a
beautiful specimen of La Marque Rose—one of the most
satisfactory Roses for a wall. Everyone ought to try and

138 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

grow it who has room and a fairly good Rose soil. The
long flowering branches were cut a yard or more in length.
At the end of each branch was a beautiful bunch of pure,
cream-white Roses, seven or eight in number, with buds
in between, and pale, healthy, green leaves down the
stem. Two such branches in a narrow-necked vase,
bronze or blue or dark green, are an ornament to which
nothing can be added for any room, be it in a cottage or a
palace. As a decoration for a large dinner-table, nothing
can be better than these Roses when they are in their
prime, which, unfortunately, is but for a very short time.

In the old days of bedding-out, lawns used to be cut
up into beds and patterns. Now the fashion has changed,
and bedding-out has become so generally condemned that
most people have levelled and turfed-over the rounds,
stars, crescents, and oblongs that used to enliven their
lawns for a short time, at any rate, every autumn. Asa
result of this reaction, there are now an immense number
of large, dull lawns, which as a rule slope slightly away
from the house, and often to the south. They are wet in
rain, and dry and brown in hot weather. They
have their weekly shave with the mowing-machine, and
lie baking inthe sunshine. The poor plants, which would
flower and do well in the open, are planted at the edges
of the shrubberies, where—in a light soil, at any rate—
they are robbed and starved into ugliness and failure by
their stronger neighbours.

There are several ways of breaking up lawns. One is
by turning the lawns into grass paths, along which the
machine runs easily, and making all the rest into open,
informally shaped beds. These can be planted in every
kind of way—in bold masses of one thing alone, or at
most in mixtures of two, such as Roses and Violas;
Azaleas and Lilies ; Carnations and more Violas, or mossy
Saxifrages; Campanulas in succession, tall and low-

JULY 139

growing ; a bold group of Bamboos and Bocconia cordata ;
or simply with a selection of a few low-growing shrubs ;
and so on ad infinitum. Another way, and one that finds
small favour with gardeners, and with considerable reason,
because of the trouble of turning the mowing-machine
round the plants, is to break up the lawn with sunshine-
loving specimen plants—Mulberries, Savins, Sumachs,
clumps of creeping Ayrshire Roses and Honeysuckles,
poles covered with claret-coloured Vines, Clematis, &c.
Yet another way is to have a double pergola running all
round the lawn in a square, or only down both sides,
with a grass path, broad and stately, underneath the
pergola. This can be made of stone or brick, oak-trees
or fir-poles; or, if wanted very light, of Japanese large
Bamboos—to be got now in London, I believe. These
Bamboos look best if two, three, or five are blocked to-
gether unequally, with different-sized openings in between,
and used as supports for fruit-trees and flowering shrubs
of all kinds. As these plants grow, bamboos and wires
have to be put across the top to support the creepers. In
the middle is a large square of grass; the openings are
left turfed, but where the supports are put into the ground
a narrow bed must be made for the plants. This enables
them to be manured, chalked, watered, and generally
cared for. I now come to what is, in my idea, by far the
most enchanting plan for breaking up a lawn, which is to
sink a small Dutch garden in the middle of it. The
size of the Dutch garden must, of course, be in proportion
to that of the lawn. If the proportion cannot be kept, it
would be better to leave it alone. It should have a red-
brick wall all round it, and be oblong or square, as suits
the situation. The entrances to it are by brick steps, one
in the middle of each of the four sides. The height of
the wallis about three feet from the ground on the outside,
and five feet on the inside. Along these walls, on the

140 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

inside, are rather wide beds, bordered by paths made of
rows of large, square red tiles, laid flat and not quite join-
ing, so that tiny alpines and mosses may grow in between
them at their own sweet will. If preferred, this narrow
path can be made of bricks or broken paving-stones. The
object of this path, besides the convenience of standing
dry to pick the flowers or weed the beds, is that the front
of the bed can be planted in groups, not in rows,
with all sorts of low-growing things :—Alyssums,
Aubrietias, Forget-me-nots, Pinks of all kinds, Saxi-
frages, and mosses. On the side shaded by the wall
and facing north small ferns, Campanulas, and shade-
loving plants are the only ones that will do well. Prim-
roses, Auriculas, and the spring-flowering bulbs and Irises
do best on the side facing east; and the summer and
autumn plants like to face west and north, as they weary
of the hot sun all the summer through. All the year
round this little garden can be kept a pleasure and a joy
by a little management, and by planting and replanting
from the greenhouse, the seed-beds, or the reserve garden.
The wall looks best if entirely planted with Tea-roses.
As they grow, they send up long waving branches, which
beautifully break the hard line of the wall. The middle
of the walled garden is grass, and the mowing machine
can never cut or injure the plants, feather forward as they
will on to the tiled path between the beds and the grass.
In the centre there can be a sundial on a square base ;
or, if you have water laid on, a small square or oblong
cement tank let into the ground, quite level with the
grass, as a fountain and to be handy for watering. All
day long the water in the tank is warmed by the sunshine.
This kind of fountain is an enormous improvement, I
think, to small suburban gardens, and it is prettier oblong
than square. The fountain must be made of cement and
six or eight feet deep. If the garden slopes at all, the

JULY 141

overflow from the fountain can be guided by small
watercourses on to different beds. I have pockets of
cement made at irregular intervals at the edges of the
fountain to hold water-plants and such things, which then
appear reflected on the surface of the water, not as they
grow against a dark shrub or a group of Italian Canes of
Bamboos, but against the blue sky above them—an end-
less pleasure to those who notice such things. A piece
of water, however small, and the sound of water falling
from a small fountain, or even from a raised tap if the
tank is near a wall, is such an added enjoyment to life on
a hot summer’s day, not to mention the infinite superiority
for watering of having water that has been exposed to the
sun and air. If not artificially fed, gold-fish live and
breed healthily in these tanks.

Water-plants, such as the Sweet-smelling Rush, the
flowering Rush Butomus wmbellatus, the Water-lily, the
Cape pond-weed Aponogeton, can all be grown in tanks
if the plants are planted in baskets or hampers, not pots,
and let down to the bottom. They give food for the fish,
and keep them healthy; a tank also serves as a dip for
swallows on the wing, and as a breeding-place for the
beautiful blue dragon-fly.

To go back to the Dutch garden. I think at the
corners of, or on each side of, the entrances there may be
pots with plants in them, or balls of stone, or anything
else in character with the rest of the stone or brick work,
which should be formal and slightly constrained in design,
as I consider all brickwork in a garden close to a house
ought to be. If planted as I described, no two such
gardens would ever be the least alike ; no law could bind
them, and no wind destroy them.

One of the most perfect ways of laying out a long flat
piece of ground I have ever seen was in a garden in
Salisbury. One long, very long, broad grass path, right

hit ie |

142 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

down the middle; wide herbaceous borders on each side,
with low plants in front and tall ones behind; and at the
back of these again, on each side, was the kitchen garden
—Gooseberries, Currants, and Raspberries, and in between
all the usual kitchen-garden vegetables ; beyond that was
a small cinder-path, and then a wall on either side, shutting
off the neighbours. One wall faced nearly north and the
other nearly south. The long garden, stretching from the
house eastward and westward, was ended by the river ;
the tall spires of the cathedral towered behind the house.
I have often thought that the same disposition of an
oblong piece of ground would turn a depressing
laurel-planted suburban garden into a thing of joy and
beauty, even without the cathedral towers and the swift,
clear, running river.

One of the most beautiful of late summer plants—I
see my friends often fail with it—is the Lobelia cardinalis
and L. fulgens, Queen Victoria. It is generally injured by
kindness, sown in the early spring, drawn up in green-
houses, and planted out weak and straggling, when it does
nothing. It is a North American bog-plant, where it lies
frost-bound for months, so it is not cold that kills it;
but it likes a long rest. I generally take up my old plants
and keep them very dry in a box ina frame, planting them
out at the end of March or early in April, before they
begin to grow at all. It is letting them grow on in the
boxes that brings the disease and rust. Every year we
sow a small patch of both kinds out of doors in June or
July, and these young plants survive the winter perfectly.
Dear youth! What a power it is to those that have it,
even among plants! In spring these plants are put where
they are wanted to flower. If they are in a dry place, I
am bound to say they require plenty of water when once
they really begin to grow. They look very well in autumn
growing out of a fine spreading base of Mrs. Sinkins

Bab)

JULY 143

Pink, which must be divided in the autumn, leaving
spaces for the planting of the Lobelia in spring.

This is the time when the plants before named, which
were put into the reserve garden in the spring—early
Chrysanthemums, Phloxes, Michaelmas Daisies—are
brought to fill up bare places in the border. If the borders
have been planted as before advised, the colours must be
arranged according to the several groups. Two plants of
the Daisy tribe—one blue-violet with a yellow middle,
called Hrigeron speciosus ; the other a bright yellow, though
some are paler than others, called Anthems tinctoria—are
invaluable in dry borders. They grow easily from seed,
and are very amiable about being moved.

July 27th.—Watering outdoor plants not in pots or
tubs is a question about which people differ much.
Gardeners as a rule are against it, and it certainly kills
perennial plants and small shrubs if begun and left off, or
even if improperly done. But in adry soil many a plant
is saved by watering it thoroughly once or twice a week,
more especially if the flower-buds are formed. My
experience is that under those circumstances watering
hurts nothing, but it has a tendency to draw the roots to
the surface, which is very undesirable with perennials,
both for heat in summer and cold in winter. With any
precious plant newly planted, and which looks thirsty, a
very good and safe plan is to sink a flower-pot in the
ground, just above the plant if the ground slopes at all.
Fill this with water, and let it soak gradually away, to the
cooling and refreshing of the roots. After the plant has
been well soaked, one filling of the pot a day, in the
morning, is sufficient. All plants that have been planted
out, after being removed from a reserve garden or seed
bed, must be watered; and once you begin, whether in
kitchen or flower garden, you must go on till it rains
steadily and well; a slight shower is no good.

144 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

A very good shading protection for small plants or
delicate seedlings is to get the village blacksmith to make
you some flower-pots—he will understand that—in per-
forated zine such as would be used for larder windows, &c.
Reverse one of these over the plant, to protect it from
sun and wind.

The mention of blacksmith reminds me that the
parings and raspings of horses’ hoofs, which can be
purchased for very little, put into a tub of water and
allowed to decompose, make a very excellent and
nourishing liquid manure. It should not be applied too
strong.

July 30th—Two shrubs are now flowering in the
garden which in this month of the year are valuable.
One is called Clethra (Sweet Pepper Bush), mentioned in
May for pot-cultivation, and useful, as it stands pulling
about and changing; it is quite hardy, but in dry places
it is the better for watering when coming into flower.
The other is called Pavia or A’sculus parvifolia (Dwarf
Horse Chestnut), a handsome and valuable hardy tree
from North America. It does not grow fast, and takes
little room; it has long spikes of flowers with bright
pink stamens, is refined and sweet, and very pretty when
gathered and wedged (see Appendix), though it would not
look well in a room in any other way. I have had it
several years, and it flowers every year; its handsome
and yet restrained growth is a great advantage in a small
garden.

145

AUGUST

Gilbert White—The decline of vegetable culture in the Middle
Ages—Preserving French Beans and Scarlet Runners—Scotch
gardens—Tropeolum speciosum—Crimson-berried Elder—The
coast of Sutherlandshire—The abuse of coarse Creepers.

August 1st.—I cannot allow a summer to go by without
referring to that dear old classic, Gilbert White’s ‘ Natural
History of Selborne.’ Even now I do not quite know
why I am so fond of these letters, except that they show
strongly the observant eye and the genuine love of Nature
which are so sympathetic to me. When I was young
my mother gave me the book to read, and it bored me
considerably. I thought the long speculations about
the hibernating of birds—Swifts, Swallows, and others—
so tiresome ; especially as I knew for sure that they
migrated. I, almost a child, knew that. In those days I
just panted for what was coming; the saying ‘old days’
to me meant the present, which was older than the past
and growing each day, as I grew myself, to greater
maturity. I did not understand what people meant by
referring to the days which were behind as ‘ the old days,’
for they represented to me the youth of time. I longed
to live the day after to-morrow before it came, if only that
were possible. Everything new interested me; I thought
the world was moving so fast ; and now that my life is
nearly over, itis as if nothing had happened. Progress
is indeed like the old Greek pattern, a continuous un-
broken line, but curling back and inwards for long periods
L

146 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

before it starts a new development. Just now even the
enthusiastic and the young are trying to live in the past—
a whole generation conservative in its youth. I suppose
it is all right, but it seems to lack the generous impulses
of the generation nourished on the teachings of Mill and
Bright. How true it is that Liberalism is not a principle,
but an attitude of mind! And the old Greek pattern will
start its long line forward again some day.

Now that hope is over for me, the old times, with

heir edifying lessons, interest me most; and so I try to

understand the evolution of the present as taught through
knowledge of the past, rather than breathlessly to grasp
the future. My mother was so kind and sensible with
me. So many parents are apt to be irritated by
daughters who bound forward in life as children pick
flowers in a field, always thinking there are many more
and much finer ones just a little further on.

Though it is now little over a hundred years since
Gilbert White died, his pictures of the change within his
memory in the general condition of the poor, and of the
improvement in agriculture, gardens and health, seem
most strange. Leprosy still existed in Selborne, though
it was much on the decline. He attributes this partly to
improved food and partly to wearing clean linen instead
of dirty woollen garments. As to the produce of a
garden, he adds, ‘ Every middle-aged person of observa-
tion may perceive, within his own memory, both in town
and country, how vastly the consumption of vegetables
is increased. Green stalls in cities now support multi-
tudes in a comfortable state, while gardeners get
fortunes. Potatoes have prevailed in this district, by
means of premiums, within these twenty years only, and
are much esteemed here now by the poor, who would
scarce have ventured to taste them in the last reign.

‘Our Saxon ancestors certainly had some sort of Cab-

AUGUST 147

bage, because they call the month of February “ Sprout-
cale’’; but long after their days the cultivation of gardens
was little attended to. The religious, being men of
leisure, and keeping up a constant correspondence with
Ttaly, were the first people among us who had gardens and
fruit trees in any perfection, within the walls of their abbeys
and priories. The barons neglected every pursuit that
did not lead to war or tend to the pleasure of the chase.’

It seems to me from this exceedingly probable that
gardens declined very much in England after the Refor-
mation, and no doubt the eating of vegetables, like the
eating of fish, may have been considered Popish. Even
in my childhood I can remember that salad was rarely
seen at any but the tables of the very wealthy, who had
foreign cooks, and then it was covered with a rich cream
sauce, full of mustard, which was supposed to make it
digestible. This superstition of the day was pointedly
brought forward in some letters I found of my grand-
mother’s to my father at Oxford, strongly recommending
him to take mustard-seeds before his meals as very
helpful to digestion.

I am far from suggesting that the Reformation had,
on the whole, an injurious effect on England, but
indirectly in many ways it seems to have led to curious
and even pernicious results. Among the most peculiar
of these was the increase of piracy in Elizabeth’s reign.
The following account, given in Froude’s ‘ English Seamen
in the Sixteenth Century,’ will explain what I mean :—‘ In
harbour there were still a score of large ships, but they
were dismantled and rotting; of artillery fit for sea work
there was none. The men were not to be had, and, as
Sir William Cecil said, to fit out ships without men was
to set armour on stakes on the seashore. The mariners
of England were otherwise engaged and in a way that
did not please Cecil. He was the ablest Minister that

L2

148 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Elizabeth had. He saw at once that on the Navy the
prosperity and even the liberty of England must even-
tually depend. If England were to remain Protestant, it
was not by Articles of religion or Acts of Uniformity that
she could be saved, without a fleet at the back of them.
But he was old-fashioned. He believed in law and order,
and he has left a curious paper of reflections on the
situation. The ships’ companies in Henry VIII.’s days
were recruited from the fishing smacks, but the Refor-
mation itself had destroyed the fishing trade. In old
times, Cecil said, no flesh was eaten on fish days. The
King himself could not have license. Now to eat beef or
mutton on fish days was the test of a true believer... .
The fishermen had taken to privateering because the fasts
of the Church were neglected. He saw it was so. He
recorded his own opinion that piracy, as he called it, was
detestable, and could not last. He was to find that it
could last, that it was to form the special discipline of
the generation whose business it would be to fight the
Spaniards. But he struggled hard against the unwelcome
conclusion. He tried to revive lawful trade by a Navi-
gation Act. He tried to restore the fisheries by Act of
Parliament. He introduced a Bill recommending godly
abstinence as a means to virtue, making the eating of
meat on Fridays and Saturdays a misdemeanour, and
adding Wednesday as a half fish day. The House of
Commons laughed at him as bringing back Popish
mummeries. To please the Protestants he inserted a
clause that the statute was politically meant for the
increase of fishermen and mariners, not for any super-
stition in the choice of meats; but is was no use. The
Act was called in mockery “‘Cecil’s Fast,” and the recovery
of the fisheries had to wait till the natural inclination of
human stomachs for fresh whiting and salt cod should
revive in itself.’

AUGUST 149

I have made this long extract because it seems to me
to throw an exceedingly interesting side-light on the non-
cultivation, and above all on the bad cooking, of vege-
tables, which extended to a great degree into my child-
hood. Even to-day, in spite of the increased quantity of
vegetables and their comparative cheapness, it is rare to
see them in any variety in English family life; and I
am told that at ordinary clubs Potatoes and Brussels
Sprouts represent in winter the vegetable kingdom.
What is still more remarkable is that the absence of
vegetables has now extended to all the principal foreign
hotels, with the probable notion of suiting the English
taste.

In the early Protestant days meat was no doubt eaten
with a religious zeal, and the cultivation and cooking of
vegetables was utterly neglected. The old gardens of the
monasteries ran to ruin even quicker than the fish-ponds.
It became a point of national honour to disregard the
methods of cooking vegetables which had been brought
by the monks, who were men of taste, from France and
Italy. Proper cooking alone makes ordinary vegetables
palatable, and improves even the very best. The extra-
ordinary development of the vegetable, fruit, and flower
trade is one of the most marked changes of my lifetime.
When I was young, it was impossible in the West End of
London to buy any flowers at all in the streets or shops.
If we did not winter in the South of France, but remained
in London, we had to go to some nursery gardens that
lay between Rutland Gate and Kensington in order to
buy a few Violets.

Froude says, about another strange effect of the Re-
formation, ‘It probably, more than any other cause,
stopped the development of paintingin England. Holbein
had no pupils. Zuccaro left the country in disgust. All
portraits that remain were painted by foreigners.’ The

150 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

worst kings from the political point of view have been
the best from that of painting. Charles I. was no excep-
tion to the rule, and his magnificent gallery was sold
by Parliament in 1645 for 38,000/., apparently without
protest.

Of all the months in the year, this is perhaps the one
in which the keenest amateur can best afford to leave
home; and if I do not go away, it is the one I can best
spare to my gardener for his holiday. In August hope,
as far as the year is concerned, is over. There is nothing
that imperatively requires doing ; nearly all there is to do
can be as well done in July or September. After deciding
to leave home I gave instructions that the young French
Beans and Scarlet Runners should be picked over, almost
daily, so that none should grow coarse and old; and that
the cook should lay them separately, as they were brought
in, in large earthenware pans—a handful of Beans and
then a handful of salt, and so on till the pan was full.
This is an excellent method ; and I have eaten them, pre-
served in this way, all through the winter. I believe this
is done everywhere abroad, but never in England, where
the waste, both in the kitchen and the garden, is, as we all
acknowledge, a national vice. Of course the Beans in the
salt must not be allowed to get touched by frost in the
autumn. When wanted, they are taken out, well soaked (to
prevent their being too salt), boiled in the ordinary way—
cut up or whole, as we like them best—then drained, and
warmed up in fresh butter, a squeeze of lemon and a little
chopped Parsley on the top. They can also be cooked
with a white cream sauce. All this is well described for
fresh Beans in ‘Dainty Dishes.’ I think these salted
Beans have more flavour than the tinned ones, or than
those that come from Madeira in the winter. Besides,
the principle of utilising everything in a garden should
nevet be lost sight of.

AUGUST 15)

This year fate took us to the North, to Northumberland,
the home of my maternal family, from which my mother
in her youth, with the whole large family, travelled twice
a year on the old North Road to London and back in
carriages and coaches. One of my mother’s aunts used
to tell a story of how in her youth she had had her hair
dressed in London to appear at a Newcastle ball, and
she added with pride, ‘ When I entered the ball-room I
had my reward.’

I was surprised to find that the great changes that
have come over our Southern gardens by the re-introducing
the old-fashioned flowers and the old methods of culti-
vating them are much less noticeable in the North.
Apparently changes work slower in the North than
around London. I wonder why this is? People there
have the same books, the same newspapers, and the same
climatic advantage as in Scotland, which makes the
herbaceous plants grow to great perfection, and flower
much longer than in the South. One would have thought
the fashion which has so influenced us would have
influenced them. I saw in many places long borders
planted with rows of red, violet, white, yellow, and purple
—vistas of what used to be called ribbon-borders, very un-
picturesque at the best, and nearly always unsatisfactory.
Why they ever came in, and why they have lasted so long,
it is difficult to understand. The gardens of rich and poor,
big house and villa, were planted on the same system—
perennials in lines, annuals in lines, Mignonette in lines ;
and where long lines were not possible, the planting was
in rows round the shrubberies, which is, I think, the
ugliest thing I know. If shrubberies are planted with
flowers at all, I like large holes cut back, which makes a
good protection, and plants introduced in bold groups. I
did not see one garden while I was away—whose owners
ought to have known better—where things were what I

152 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

call well planted, in good bold masses of colour ; whereas
near Dublin more than two years ago I found the best
herbaceous border I have ever seen. The way of plant-
ing in this Dublin border, with all the reds in one place,
and the blues, the yellows, and the whites kept apart as
much as possible, was as superior to the dotted arrange-
ment as the dotted system is to the line, in my opinion.
TI even saw in some places this year what I as a child
had remembered as old mixed borders, turned into that
terrible gardening absurdity, carpet-bedding—the pride,
I suppose, of the gardener and the admiration of his
friends. This is never to be seen now in Surrey, I think,
except in certain beds at Hampton Court ; and why it is
continued there I find it hard to understand, unless it
is that it really does give pleasure to Londoners, and
certainly in its way it is carried out to great perfection.

IT had always heard of the brilliant beauty of Scotch
gardens, and the moment I saw them I understood why
it was. The seasons are so late that all the summer
flowers bloom together; May and June of the South
merge into July and August in Scotland, and everything
is in flower at once. No wonder the gardens look bright ;
besides, the damp air makes the colours more beautiful
and the scent stronger.

It is, I think, very interesting to the gardener, where-
ever he goes, to see how the common everyday things
flourish more in one place than another. The Highlands
seem to be the home of the Gooseberry—such old and
hoary bushes, more or less covered by grey Lichens, but
laden none the less with little hairy Gooseberries, both
red and green, and full of flavour. There, too, the
beautiful Trop@olum speciosum, South American stranger
as it is, flames and flourishes and luxuriates everywhere,
growing too, as it will not do in the South, in full sun-
shine. The seed is so lovely in Scotland, almost as

AUGUST 153

beautiful as the flower itseli—three dark steel-blue
seeds set in the dying flower, which turns a rich brown.
Was ever anything more daintily beautiful to be seen ?
It can be grown up strings, as in the picture in the
‘English Flower Garden’; but I do not think that is as
pretty as rambling with its delicate growth over some
light creeper, such as Jasmine or Rose, as I recommended
before. I did not see in the Highlands, rather to my
surprise, though I believe it is planted in some places,
the beautiful crimson-berried Hlder, Sambucus racemosa.
This was the one remarkable plant-feature I saw in
Norway last year. I was there too late to see the wild
flowers. It had not been imported very long, they told
us, and it adorned all the stations (there is only one short
railway in Norway), throwing out long branches covered
with bunches of crimson berries, which are shaped like
the black bunches on the Privet rather than like the flat
berries of the common Elder. At a distance the plant
looks, when covered with ripe berries, like a beautiful
Crimson Rambler. It is singularly effective, and I have
never seen it in England. I imagine this must be
because, if it grew and berried ever so well in damp
places, the birds would soon clear off all the fruit. In
Norway there seem to be no small birds, for there the
berries hung for weeks and weeks, in crimson loveliness.
The shrub is about the height of Lilac bushes ; the berries
grow on the old wood, and the growth of the year is a
most brilliant green. It is a plant that more people
should try to grow in damp situations.

We were far North, up in Sutherlandshire, where the
great storm of two years ago laid bare miles and miles of
forest. I never saw a more curious sight—pathetic and
sad too, in a way. The poor trees, which had from their
youth up been accustomed to storms from the south and
west, had sent out long roots, and buried them deep under

154 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

rocks and stones, which gave them firm hold to resist the
blast. But on this November morning two years ago
the snow was on the tree-tops, which made them heavy,
and the furious gale swept on them from the north, and
down they fell in thousands—whole hillsides laid bare,
without one tree left standing, all torn up by the roots.
It will be many years before the countryside is cleared
of its own fallen timber.

We liveda mile from the sea. The Sutherlandshire coast
is tame enough, but beautifully desolate—no travellers,
no tourists, nothing to disturb the solitude. I am not
very fond of the East Coast, as there in the afternoon one
is only able to enjoy reflected sunshine. It always
reminds me of friends as they grow cold; they ex-
pect us to be warmed by the sunshine of yesterday.
Once I went down alone to the shore; it was a beauti-
ful evening, with hundreds of shades of pearly greys
and pinks reflected on sand and wave—an evening to
make mean things noble and costly things ridiculous, an
evening that humbles one down to the very dust, and yet
lifts one clean off one’s feet with enthusiasm and exultation.
I remember years ago a friend of mine telling me she
had met Jenny Lind, who had then just left the stage, at
a quiet South Coast seaside bathing-place. Jenny Lind
was sitting on the steps of a bathing-machine, and my friend
began talking to her and asking her ‘if she did not think
she would miss terribly the excitement of acting.’ ‘ Very
likely,’ she answered, ‘but I had ceased to be able to
admire that,’ pointing to the great gold sun going down
in its glory, ‘and I had ceased to be able to read this,’
tapping a Bible that lay on her knees. ‘ Don’t you think
it was time to give it up?’

I had not been five minutes on this lonely Sushextand
shore before I counted quite ten wild sea-birds of dif-
ferent kinds flying around, screaming to each other, and

AUGUST 155

floating about on the tiny waves that broke gently on the
sand. I suppose few can hear that sound of the waves
without thinking of Tennyson’s ‘Break, break, break.’
A little poem of Emerson’s, much less known, is a great
favourite of mine, full as it is of a tender double
meaning :—

The delicate shells lay on the shore;

The bubbles of the latest wave

Fresh pearl to their enamel gave,

And the bellowing of the savage sea

Greeted their safe escape to me.

I wiped away the weeds and foam,

And brought my sea-born treasures home ;

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things

Had left their beauty on the shore

With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.

I feel these lines reproach me for my many quotations.
Have we any right to pick beautiful things out of books
and quote them without their context? I suspect not, and
I beg you all to consider, if you find them deficient, that
it is I who have taken them away from ‘ the sun and the
sand and the wild uproar.’

In the grounds of the great castle we were near was
a very interesting museum. What an excellent thing
is a private museum in a large place! It would be
a great advantage, I think, if it were started on many
estates, or even in villages, as then the barbaric things
and various specimens of natural history which different
members of a family bring home might be kept where
they are of distinct interest, instead of crowding up a
modern sitting-room, where they look totally inappropriate
and even ugly.

There had always been a tradition that one of the
ships belonging to the Spanish Armada had _ been
wrecked off this coast, but no treasure had ever been
found. Two years ago, when the river was low, a

156 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

cow went into the mud to drink, and came out with a
splendid Spanish old gold coin of the time of the Armada
stuck in her hoof. Nothing more was discovered, but as
the river was tidal it was a curious confirmation of the
old tradition. On our way South we could not help
noticing how far more beautiful Scotland is than Norway.
The Heather was unusually fine this year. We stayed a
night in Edinburgh, which gave me an opportunity of
seeing the pictures in the National Gallery. I wonder if
many tourists visit it? The morning I was there I
did not see two people in the gallery. Besides the
Raeburns, which are of world-wide fame, several pictures
stand out with peculiar interest, especially the life-sized
Gainsborough of the young Mrs. Grahame. She sat for
this picture as a bride, but before it came home she was
dead and her husband had gone to the wars. When he
came back, he never had the courage to open the case
which contained his young wife’s portrait. On his death,
many long years after it was painted, it was opened by
his heirs, and inside the case was the little white slipper
she had left with the painter to help him to finish his
picture. The portrait was given to the Edinburgh
Gallery, and the slipper was kept by the family. It is
worth noting that an oil picture should have remained
so long shut up and apparently not deteriorated in any
way. There is a lovely Greuze, one of the prettiest I
have ever seen, a child of about fourteen crying over a
dead canary; an exquisite little Boucher of Mme. de
Pompadour; a large picture by the eighteenth-century
Venetian painter Tiepolo, whose works are rarely seen
out of Venice. The picture gives one more impression of
his power and cleverness than it delights one with its
beauty. The expression, character, and sex are described
by the power of the brush as completely as by the word-
painting of a Paul Bourget novel. What added to my

END

AUGUST 157

interest in Tiepolo was the revival of admiration his works
have lately had among young French painters. I was
immensely pleased at seeing a portrait of the painter
Martin, by himself—a red-haired youth, with the cold
dreamy eyes of the artistic temperament, a mouth rather
sensual than passionate, a fine brow, and aslightly receding
chin, which gave a touch of weakness to the face. All my
life I have so admired his wildly imaginative illustrations
of the Bible, Milton, &. The impression given by the
portrait is of a touching, interesting face, with that look
of sorrow which so appeals to one, especially in the young.
The gods do not always remember that those whom they
love should die young. Poor Martin did not die till middle
life, and went mad, I believe.

On leaving Edinburgh we returned to Tweed-side,
where we saw several of the old Border towers and the
really fine ‘stately homes’ of England. Here I was
struck by the same mistake which prevails in the South.
The walls and shapes of fine old houses are ruined by
allowing, even on the southern and western aspects, a
rampageous growth of coarse creepers, such as Ivy, the
common Virginia Creeper, and Ampelopsis veitchii. This
last is the most insidious and destructive of all, as no
kitten compared to a cat, and no baby donkey compared
to an old one, could ever more completely change its
character from youth to age than does this creeper.
When first planted, the tiny, delicate growth that creeps
up the mullioned windows is as pretty and harmless as
anything can be; but in a year or two all this turns into
a huge mass of green leaves of an even shape and size,
smothering up any less strong-growing creeper and
destroying all outline of the house itself, its tiny feet
sticking so fast to the stone or brick work that, if you try
to pull them away, small particles of the wall itself come
with them. Besides the temptation of its beautiful early

158 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

srowth, one must admit that for ten days the red and
bronze and gold of its autumn tints go far to compensate
for its many defects during the rest of the year. But this
pleasure is easily retained by allowing it to grow over
some ugly barn or northern wall, which has no architecture
to injure or hide, and where flowering creepers would not
flower. No one who has ever been to America and seen
Boston can forget the dreary effect of house after house
covered from cellar to roof with this luxuriant, overpower-
ing ‘ Vine,’ as every Creeper is called in America. The
true name of the Ampelopsis is Tvricuspidata; but the
Americans call it Japanese Ivy, in memory of where it
comes from. If anything could accentuate the ugliness
of the general effect, it is the square holes cut for the
windows in this evenly green foliage. Everything is
worth having in London that will grow there, but, with
this picture in my mind, may I urge all who have any
influence to make some protest against the fashionable
use of this creeper, which seems to prevail from South to
North of Great Britain? Just before I left home I saw
with consternation that every delicate brick turret of
Hampton Court Palace had been carefully planted with
Ampelopsis. For the present it looks harmless enough
to all but the prophetic eye of a gardener, but in a few
years the sharp lines of the delicate masonry will be
entirely veiled by its luxuriant and monotonous growth.
Surely fine and historical buildings are very much better
left without creepers. In the case of ordinary modern
houses with bare walls it is infinitely better to cover them
with some of the endless variety of shrubs, creepers, and
plants, which can be chosen to flower in succession
through the whole year—from the Chimonanthus fragrans,
which pushes forth its sweet-scented brown flowers in
January, to the bare branches of the Jasminum nudi-
florwm, whose yellow stars light up a December fog.

AUGUST 159

Returning from Scotland, we spent a few days near
Lancaster. The town is picturesquely situated. It is
full of sketching possibilities for those who delight, as
Turner did, in the glorification of commonplace objects
by the veiling and unveiling of smoke, and in the con-
stant colour-changes produced by the same. A very
handsome bridge crosses the broad Lune, and carries
the Preston and Kendal canal. This is one of the
curious historical records of the waste of a people’s
money, and absolutely dead speculation. This canal was
just finished, with its magnificent engineering, at great
expense and with high hopes of its usefulness, imme-
diately before the railways came and rendered it almost
useless. Sleepy barges glide along it, profiting by its
dignified engineering, and creeping under its countless
bridges as they never could have done had it been cease-
lessly ploughed by small steamers, as was intended. I
do not exactly know why, but it brought back to my
mind—from a consecutiveness of idea, I suppose—the
elaborate fortifications of Quebec, the pride of George III.’s
heart, upon which had been spent the nation’s money and
labour, and which were scarcely finished when the
developments of modern warfare rendered them useless.
Not very far from Lancaster, at Levens, is the famous
example of topiary gardening which figures in the last
edition of the ‘ English Flower Garden.’ I was unfor-
tunately prevented from going to see it by deluges of
rain.

160 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

SHPTEMBER

Weeds we alternately love and hate—Amaryllis belladonna—First
touch of frost—Colour -blindness— Special annuals—Autumn
seed-sowing— Re-planting Carnation layers—Planting drives and
approaches to small houses—‘ Wild gardening ’—Double Violets—
Salvias—Baby chickens—Pigeons.

September 11th.—In talking of the Welsh Poppy in July
I spoke of it as one of the plants which are such weeds
that at times one says, ‘Oh, I wish I had never
introduced the horrible thing into the garden at all!’
Another of these is the Campanula ranunculus, or Creep-
ing Bell-flower—‘ creeping,’ not because of its growth, but
because of its root. After rain in July, August, or Sept-
ember, or even much later, I know nothing more lovely
than the way it throws up its flower-stems, quite in
unexpected places. These when picked and fixed in
vases in the Japanese way are most graceful, and last a
long time in water. Another terrible weed is the wild
annual Balsam, Impatiens glandulifera, which sows itself
in the most audacious and triumphant manner ; but it
takes little root-hold, and is easy to pull up in the spring.
What a wonderfully handsome, yet delicate, plant it is!
with its beautiful flowers, its long pointed leaves, its red
square stems, its seed-vessels shaped like buds, which
burst with a crack and scatter the seeds far and wide.
Were the plant difficult to grow, no garden or greenhouse
would be without it. It deserves a place, even if reduced
to one plant, in every moderate-sized garden ; it looks

SEPTEMBER . 161

especially well grown as a single plant in good soil. To
add to its perfections it has a delicate, sweet smell, and
does well in water. Gardeners will always look upon it,
with a show of reason, as a horrid weed; but flower-
lovers will never be without it. The little yellow
Fumitory is invaluable for walls and dry places and
under shrubs, always looking fresh and green and
flourishing, however dry the weather or apparently un-
favourable the situation. It is a weed, but it keeps away
other weeds, which, as the old nurse said, was the great
use of mothers—they kept away stepmothers. Another
low-growing, fast-spreading small plant I strongly recom-
mend is the Polygonum affine. Ithas pink flowers, which
continue in bloom many weeks; it can be increased with
the greatest facility by division, and it is a good border
plant, as the leaves take beautiful colours in the autumn.
The hardy Plumbago larpente is a first-rate plant for a
sunny, dry place, and its bright-blue flowers continue till
the frost comes. Tradescantia virguuca is a plant con-
stantly turned out of borders, as it spreads so fast; but all
it requires is severe thinning in the spring, and again
sometimes in the summer. I have four shades—the
ordinary blue, a deep red-purple shade, a pale grey, and
a pure white; they are lovely flowers, and interesting
through their unusual shape. All these last-mentioned
plants are well worth growing in even the smallest gardens.

September 15th.—I have flowered out of doors this
year for the first time the beautiful Amaryllis belladonna.
Anyone who has a garden, or a wall or a corner near a
greenhouse, where the conditions for growing this Lily
can be carried out, ought to spare no effort to make it
successful. The instructions have been clearly given
in the ‘English Flower Garden,’ but I have found two
‘other things helped the growth—one is planting them
by the wall of the greenhouse where the warm pipes run ;

M

162 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

and the other is, when the leaves have died down in June,
and the earth is weeded and raked, to cover the beds
where the bulbs are planted with pieces of glass, so that
the rains of July, which are so frequent, should not damp
the bulbs before they are ready to start into flower in
September. When the flower-buds appear, a dose of
liquid manure may be given them; and a little fern to
protect their leaves in early spring is desirable. I know
nothing more beautiful than the fine, pink, Lily-like flower
on its thick, rich brown stem when brought into a room.

September 16th.—About this date is when we look,
here in the South, for the first sign of cold, or even for frost.
The weather must be watched, and any half-hardy things
that have not done flowering are best taken up, potted,
and encouraged to go on flowering. The drought this
year kept many things back. My Tuberoses and the
sweet-smelling white Bouvardia—the one best worth
growing, especially outside—I must now take up, and
they will go on flowering in the greenhouse. The pink
and red Bouvardias are pretty, but have no sweet scent,
like the white; the pink ones are a true pink, and that
is always worth cultivating for a greenhouse, where every
shade of magenta should be excluded. I am sure many
of the eye-shocks we receive with regard to colour—both
in dress, in rooms, and in the arrangement of flowers—is
not so much owing to what would be called bad taste as
to various degrees of colour-blindness. An inability to
see colours at all, much less to see the shades truly and
correctly, is far more common than we imagine, and is
one of the things that should be tested in child-
ren, as—though probably the defect cannot be cured,
any more than short sight, which is now so much helped
by glasses, &c.—any good oculist would give advice as
to the best method of cultivating the eye to be true as
regards colour. The improvement in the arrangement of

SEPTEMBER 163

cut flowers in the last twenty years is very great indeed,
and in almost every family there is one member at least
who gives it real love and attention; but I hardly ever
see a greenhouse, large or small, that is not left entirely
to the tender mercy of the gardener, who thinks of
nothing, and quite rightly, but of his plants being healthy.
He spots everything about—red, white, blue, grey, yellow—
and often in the very midst he places some well-grown but
terrible blue-pink or magenta Pelargonium, which puts
everything out of tone. In the greenhouse, as in the
garden, two things are to be aimed at—form and colour:
and in a greenhouse one must be sure to add plants that
give forth a sweet smell. To get the colour good, you
must keep the plants in groups, the same colours as
much as possible together, a bold mass of yellow, red, or
blue, dividing them with green or nearly-green plants.
Cryptomeria japonica makes a charming greenhouse
shrub, and will grow in very small pots, and not grow
quickly ; it is, however, only one of many. Another
small green growth that is very pretty, and easy to grow
and increase by division, is Pilea nwscosa. For smell I
know nothing more delicious than the mixture of Liliwm
auratum and Huwmea elegans; but lately I have had to
give up that tiresome though charming half-hardy
biennial, as, like the Hollyhocks, it is so apt to get a
disease, its leaves growing spotty and falling off. In the
‘English Flower Garden’ it is said that this happens
from sowing it too early the previous year. A thick-
leaved plant called Lochea falcata I find a useful green-
house plant. It has to be two or three years old before
it flowers, but is easy to increase from cuttings in July.
I tried drying it off like the Cactuses, but that does not
answer; it requires a warm greenhouse all the winter
and a little water. For baskets in the greenhouse I
use Fuchsia procumbens ; it has a lovely little miniature
M 2

164 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

flower, and later a pretty fruit three times as big as the
flower. Campanula garganca (blue, and the white one
too) and Convolvulus mauritamcus are lovely basket plants.
The last-named, nearly hardy, is from North Afriea,
and easy to increase from division or cuttings. The
Cape Mesembryanthemums are pretty basket plants, and
do well ina sunny greenhouse. Small, old-fashioned Ivy-
leaved Geraniums grow prettily in baskets. But the
flowers are endless that can be grown in this way ; some
require a saucer to keep in the moisture, others do not.
Nothing, however, will teach all this but experience and
constant reference to the books.

Among the immense mass of annuals advertised in
catalogues it is often so difficult to make up one’s mind
what to have. I live, luckily for me, not far from
Mr. Barr’s Nursery at Long Ditton, and this gives me
a chance of seeing a variety of plants and annuals for
which no private garden would have room. Two little
half-hardy annuals that flowered this year for a very
long time seem to me well worth growing, Alonsow
linifolia and A. Warscewiczw. I do wish such small
flowers would have less break-jaw names. They are low-
erowing (about a foot or a foot and a half high), rather
delicate-looking little plants; but so bright in colour, one
scarlet and the other scarlet and orange. They are very
effective if grown in a good large clump. Bartonia awrea
is a picturesque-growing yellow summer annual, which
does well in this light soil.

Limnanthes Douglasii, a Californian annual, is much
loved of bees in spring, and, if sown early in the autumn,
flowers in May. Wallflowers require sowing very early
for the following year; also all the Primrose and Poly-
anthus tribe are all better sown in April. I know nothing
more puzzling in gardening than the times of sowing
annuals and biennials to make them successful, and I

‘oatit Wa RY
a

‘Alen

SEPTEMBER 165

imagine they must have different treatment in different
soils and climates. Constant practice and study are re-
quired. All the autumn things do best here sown late in
April or at the beginning of May; otherwise they come in
tooearly. Early annuals and late annuals are worth grow-
ing in this light soil; but Poppies, Salpiglossis, Migno-
nette, and Sweet-peas are, I think, almost the only summer
annuals we make room for every year. Eschscholtzias and
Musk sow themselves, and only have to be thinned. The
common Hemp (Cannabis sativa) is a lovely foliage-plant
when well grown and not crowded up. ;
It is all-important to remember in the sowing of
seeds from January to September, be it in heat or out
of doors, and whether perennials, biennials, annuals, or
greenhouse plants, that what we want is not a quantity
of seedlings all germinating into life in masses, but a few
fine healthy plants. The larger and cheaper the packet
of seed, the more thinly they should be sown. In the
case of rare and delicate plants it is well to sow only one
seed in each pot, the smallest that can be got (I have
never seen any so small as the French ones), sink them
in a box with cocoanut fibre, which prevents the
necessity of constant watering. Seedlings, like all other
plants, are the better for using nothing but rain-water, if
possible. If the sowing is done in a seed bed out of
doors, and if the weather is very dry, it is best to soak
the ground well first before sowing, and then cover the
tiny seed beds with fine gravel, leaving the small stones
in, as they give great protection to the seeds from the
heat of the sun. We have all noticed the vigour with
which self-sown seeds grow in a gravel path. Towards
the end of this month, or at the beginning of the next, is
the time to take the early layers off the Carnations and
to re-make the beds, or, at any rate, to plant them in
clearly-named rows in the kitchen garden, so that they

166 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

may be carefully moved in the spring with a ball of
earth. I find that the beds made up in early autumn do
much the best, though one is loath to disturb Carnations
which may go on occasionally throwing up a flower, or
whose foliage, in any case, is so very beautiful half
through the winter if the weather keeps mild.

September 15th—Everyone who lives at all in the
neighbourhood of suburban residences must be struck
with the extraordinary sameness of the shrubberies
which surround these houses and gardens, especially
those which are almost invariably planted along the
approaches. First of all you generally find the road
waving and twisting—to give, I suppose, an impression
of greater length—edged by a foot or two of grass, ugly
in itself and laborious to keep tidy. The shrubs are
roughly clipped back, chiefly at the bottom, while as
they grow upwards the top branches out of reach are
left to overhang the road. This clipping, without any
regard to the good of the shrub, whether evergreen or
deciduous, all treated in exactly the same way, makes a
hideous hard wall of green, more or less imperfect. A
still uglier way, though more modern, is to keep the
shrubs apart by cutting them back in round, pudding-
shaped nobs. This method has not one redeeming
quality, to my mind. When you arrive in front of the
house, the road terminates in a most unmanageable
and impracticable circle, surrounding a green plot of
grass with more or less the same clipped shrubs all
round. This plot of grass is sometimes broken up with
standard Rose-trees, or small beds with Geraniums, or
basket beds, all very inappropriate, adding much to the
gardener’s labour, but not contributing in any way to
any beauty of form or colour. Instead of this drive
round a grass plot or the circular bed of shrubs, I think
most people would find their approach more simple and

ay

SEPTEMBER 167

dignified if that road were straightened where it is
possible, and ended in a large square or oblong of gravel
at right angles to the house, sufficiently roomy for
carriages to turn with ease. The sides could then be
planted with borders or shrubberies, or merely turfed,
according to the taste of the owner and the space at his
command. Where the soil is light, and the drive up long
enough, it is well to plant it with the wild growth of the
neighbouring common—Box, Holly, Broom, Ling, Honey-
suckle, Blackberries. These will never grow into a wall,
and require very little weeding and attention.

Now a word about the original planting. When you
take a new house, it generally happens that the first
wish is to gain privacy by planting out a neighbour or a
road. In light soils the common Rhododendron grows
nearly as quickly, if planted in peat, as the Laurel or the
Portugal Laurel. It is decidedly prettier, and does not
suffer in the same way in severe winters from frost. I
believe that some people prefer Laurels to other shrubs ;
but it must be remembered that Laurels make root-
growth like trees, take all moisture out of the soil, and
starve other shrubs near them. Rhododendrons, on the
other hand, grow very much on the surface, are easily
transplanted at any time during the summer, and can be
increased by layering. Where screening is necessary,
the first object must, of course, be quick-growing shrubs,
and these three—the common Rhododendron, the Laurel,
and the Portugal Laurel—are, we must admit, the most
satisfactory. They must be planted in bold masses, not
mixed, and thinned out in a few years by taking out
alternate plants. Where this screening is not wanted,
choicer shrubs should be planted, with knowledge,
according to their growth, their requirements of aspect,
their size, their colour, their time of flowering, their
hardiness or delicacy, and so on; all to be learnt from

168 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

the ‘English Flower Garden.’ A good deal of what I
have said on the planting of herbaceous borders applies
here—namely, the necessity of grouping colour in masses,
and not speckling the kinds about at random. ‘The
amateur must not be disappointed at finding that a good
shrubbery, however well planted, will not make much
effect under five or six years. This kind of planting is
very much better understood by the landscape gardeners
sent out by nurserymen now than it was some years
ago.

If, instead of a new house, we buy a place that has
been planted for some twenty or thirty years, the amount
that has to be thinned out is incredible. People in Eng-
land are so afraid of thinning out; if they would only try
it with greater boldness, they would soon realise how
very quickly the gaps are filled up again by the improved
strength of the plants. Short of destroying protection
from winds, I should say it is hardly possible to do any
harm if, where two plants are crowded together, the
Laurel is always sacrificed. But remember that severe
clearing of shrubs must be done in the summer, as when
delicate shrubs that have always been surrounded by
strong growers are exposed late in the year, they are apt _
to be killed if the winter is severe. Wherever Hollies
or Yews have been crowded, they look very ugly, after
clearing, for a year or so; but if well cut back, they soon
recover, and make better plants than young ones would
do in many years. It is quite superfluous for me to give
a catalogue of desirable shrubs, for there is an admirable
list of all the hardy flowering trees and shrubs in the
introductory part of the later editions of the eternally-
mentioned ‘English Flower Garden.’ Their cultivation
and propagation are all given in the body of the work.
Where edging is necessary to keep the soil separate from
the gravel road, I should advise, instead of the grass, flat

SEPTEMBER 169

pieces of stone, where it is possible to get them, or bricks
put in edgeways, or drain-tiles, tiles, or flints. There are
all sorts of low-growing things which may be planted
behind this edge, according to situation and aspect, such
as Periwinkles, St. John’s Wort, London Pride, and
other Saxifrages, Heuchera, Tvarella cordifolia, and the
hybrid Megaseas (large-leafed Saxifrage) in many
varieties. However many or few of these varieties are
chosen, each sort must be planted together in groups,
never dotted about. Beside the more picturesque effect
produced by masses, there is a practical necessity for
this: the stronger-growing plants crowd out the weaker.
Some want replanting or dividing every year, others
thrive best left alone.

What I have said above refers to moderate-sized
places, but I think I can especially help people with
regard to much smaller gardens, which I have so often
seen ruined by coarse-growing shrubs, not one of which
should be admitted. I should not allow anything
coarser-growing than the green and variegated Box,
the golden Privet, Bay-tree (which can be constantly
cut back), Daturas, Viburnum plicatum, Irish Yews,
Cotoneaster grown as a bush, Choisya ternata, Berberises,
Buddlea globosa. Ii you have room, and can get the
special soil, Azaleas and other of the smaller American
plants are very desirable. I may mention now that for a
very small garden no turf is advisable. Do not try to
copy the Manor House garden, but rather take the
cottage garden for a model, improving and beautifying it.
Make the background of shrubs take the place of the
background of cabbages of the cottager, and have only
one paved path down the middle, and a narrow earth
one round the outside. If you have a little spare space
on one side or at the back, then turf that over and plant
it with Apple-trees, spring and autumn bulbs, Columbines

170 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

for summer, together with Snapdragons and Foxgloves—
all of which grow well in grass. The grass must then
only be mown once a year, in July.

Many of the houses built round the neighbourhood of
London in the early part of the century were built close to
the road, and have a ludicrous and pompous approach of
a drive passing the front door, with two gates—one for
entrance and one for exit. Surely this is a great waste
of ground with no proportionate advantage. Most places
of this kind would certainly be improved if the two gates
were blocked up, the drive done away with, and a straight
paved or bricked path made from the door to the road,
with a shelter of wood, or even of corrugated iron, painted
to match the house, and creepers planted along the posts
that support it. The space on either side of this path
could be planted with low-growing shrubs, or in some
instances laid with turf.

In spite of all the charming things Mr. Robinson says
about it, ‘wild gardening’ is, I am sure, a delusion and
asnare. I live near one of the most beautiful so-called
wild gardens in England, but it requires endless care,
and is always extending in all directions in search of
fresh soil. What is possible is to have the appearance
of a wild garden in consequence of the most judicious
planting, with consummate knowledge and experience of
the plants that will do well in the soil if they are just a
little assisted at the time of planting. I saw the other
day the most lovely Surrey garden I know, though it is
without any peculiar natural advantages from the lie of
the land—a flat piece of ground on the top of a hill, a
copse wood of Spanish Chestnut, Birch, Holly, and Fir.
Even in the original thinning of the wood the idea had
been formulated that certain plants and trees had better
be kept together as they grew, and broad open spaces
had been cut, broken up with groups of Holly for

SEPTEMBER LE

protection. The paths were laid with that short turf
that grows on Surrey commons, and only wants mowing
three or four times a year. The planting had been done
with the greatest skill, almost imperceptibly getting more
and more cared for and refined as it got nearer the
house. Here I saw, among many other things, the
finest specimens of the smaller Magnolias, Stellata and
Conspicua. This surprised me, as I thought they
required heavy soil. The ground had been thoroughly
well made, and they were well away from any trees that
could rob them; but in the lightest, dryest soil they were
far finer plants than the specimen plants in the grass
lawns at Kew. This whole garden was such a beautiful
contrast from the usual planning and clearing-away of
all the natural advantages that generally surround a
place which is being built or altered. The land, as a
rule, is dug over and made flat, and planted in the usual
horrible shrubbery style. I have seen such wonderful
natural advantages thrown away, a copse laid low to
extend a lawn, a lovely spring, which could have been
turned into a miniature river, made into a circular pond,
with Laurels, Rhododendrons, and other shrubs dotted
about, and twisted gravel paths made round it. Another
lovely natural pond I knew, into which the rains drained,
though nearly at the top of a hill, where water was
precious and scarce. Now it is cemented all round with
hard, cold cement, on which nothing can grow, and into
which, in the wettest of weather, the water can no longer
drain. The pond never fills, and nothing can grow
around it. I know few things more depressing than an
utter want of feeling for Nature’s ways of playing the
artist, as she does at every turn. I cannot understand
anyone walking down a hilly road after rain without
admiring the action of the water on its surface, with the
beautiful curves and turns and sand islands that Nature

172, POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

leaves in playful imitation of her grandest efforts—the
St. Lawrence, for instance, cutting its way to the sea
through its over two thousand miles of flat plains in
North America. It has long been said, ‘God sends the
food, and the Devil sends the cook. I am sure the
same might be said of the owners, the nurserymen, and
the landscape gardeners, who most carefully, as a rule,
throw away every single natural advantage of the piece
of ground they are laying out, and believe they are
‘improving’! What would give me the greatest pleasure
would be to have the laying-out of a little place on the
side of a hill with a fine view to the south and west, and
the land sloping away and gently terraced till it reached
the plain at the bottom. But for this kind of garden
clever terracing and a good supply of water are absolutely
necessary.

September 20th.—Towards the end of this month we
take up the double Violets—old Neapolitan and Marie
Louise are the ones we grow—exchanging runners with
friends and neighbours in the spring, as it is not well
always to go on growing from the same plants, especially
in a light soil, as they deteriorate. In April the old
plants are broken up and the runners planted in a good,
well-made bed of loam and leaf mould, not much manure,
under a wall facing north, to keep them cool and shaded
all the summer; they must be watered if the weather is
very dry. At this time of year we make a deep hole in
the full sun in the kitchen garden, fill this in with the
ordinary stuff for making a hot-bed, putting the frame
over this, with the sides a little sunk to keep out the cold,
and fill up the frame with good mould. It is of supreme
importance that the Violets should be planted quite close
to the glass of the frame, touching at first, as the mould
always sinks a little. If the winter is cold, it helps the
Violets very much to put some rough boards a foot away

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SEPTEMBER 173

from the outside of the frame, and fill up the space with
leaves or manure. We find nitrate of soda useful for
many things, and especially so for Violets. For Czars
and other outdoor Violets it is useful to cut a ditch
running north and south, and plant both banks with
young runners of Violets in April. The position is more
natural to the plants than on the flat ground, and they
are shaded during part of each day; this makes a great
difference to so many plants. Ophiopogon spicatus is a
small herbaceous plant which no one would grow merely
for its unshowy little lilac flower, which appears late in
the autumn, but it is well worth growing in every
garden, because its pretty foliage is in its prime about
December and January, and is most useful for mixing
with small greenhouse flowers.

September 25th.—The plants moved from the reserve
garden in July have done very well. The Michaelmas
Daisies are unusually good. There are a great many
dwarf kinds, very suitable for small gardens. Little
shapely trees covered with starry white or lilac flowers
are, I suppose, to be got anywhere now; mine came
from my neighbour, Mr. Barr, who has a grand collec-
tion. I can only repeat what I said before, how easily
these plants can be divided and replanted in spring, and
in large and roomy places a Michaelmas Daisy garden
can be made for the late months. Boltonia corymbosa is
a charming plant, more restrained than the Michaelmas
Daisy, and better suited to small gardens. It is very
pretty picked, but its fault is that if comes in rather
early.

The wet weather has suited one of the handsomest
of autumn flowers, the tall white Pyrethrum. Salvias do
well here, but they like it dry and hot, and are not so good
as usual this year, though flowering wellnow. S. patens,
the dark-blue, and S. splendens, the beautiful scarlet one,

174 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

are the two that no one should be without. They grow
most easily from cuttings every year, though we keep the
tuberous roots of S. patens, as we do Dahlias, from year
to year. There are other Salvias quite worth growing,
but none I know so good as these two. Things are keep-
ing on well in the kitchen garden with the wet and the
absence of frost. We have still some excellent late-sown
French Beans. As a rule gardeners stint the slightly
uncertain crop of French Beans by not sowing them in
succession, depending for the kitchen supply on the
Scarlet Runners, which are not nearly so delicate, and
have not half the flavour of the true French Beans. Late
Peas completely beat us. We have never had them but
once; they damp off. This must be, I should think, from
the western aspect of the garden. I will try sowing them
the first week in June next year in an open field we have,
exposed to the full sun and wind, to see if in that position
they will do better.

September 30th.—We have tried for the first time just
lately the baby chickens, which were a fashionable and
expensive luxury last season in London. Roast them
as you roast a quail, or they can be boiled and served
cold with a covering of delicate white Mayonnaise
sauce. They should be killed when five or six weeks old,
cooked the same day, and each person should have one.
This sounds very extravagant, but a chicken the day of
its birth is not worth much more than the price of an egg,
and feeding them six weeks is no great expense. I can
strongly recommend anyone who keeps poultry to try
them, as we found them very delicate and tender.

For those who keep pigeons and want to kill them off—
which, of course, must be done—I do not advise you to roast
them and place them on the menw as ‘ Bordeaux pigeons’
(which a friend of mine did, to the indignation of her sons),
but to cook them as they do ptarmigan in Norway :—

SEPTEMBER 175

Stew them quite fresh in an earthenware stew-pan
(with the livers, &c., chopped up, inside them) in good
stock, witha lot of vegetables cut up, especially onion and
a bunch of herbs, which is removed before serving. If
more details are wanted, the receipt for jugged hare in
‘Dainty Dishes’ will supply them. Serve with a hot
compote of Cherries, dried or bottled, or Cranberries or
Bilberries or Barberries, instead of the usual Red Currant
jelly. Ifyou have a great many pigeons, they could be
boned and made into the French Pie, according to the
recipe in ‘ April.’

We grow a great many Morella Cherries on the east and
north side of the wall. These ripen enough to be used for
compotes in July, but by covering up the trees they can be
kept on till now, or even later, and this is the best time for
making them into Brandy Cherries, as follows :—Cut the
cherries off the trees, leaving a little stalk, and let them
drop straight into the bottle. When the bottle is half-full,
shake in some powdered white sugar. Fill. up with more
cherries and more sugar. When quite full, pour in brandy,
and leave it till next day. Then fill up the bottle with
brandy, and cork it down. Seal the cork as in receipt
before given (see pp. 109, 110). The brandy cherries are
better if kept for two years before eating.

All gardens at this time of the year are full of
unripe green Tomatoes; they are generally left hanging
on the plants till the frost touches them, and then thrown
away. If picked and stewed in a little butter in an
earthenware dish, they are excellent. They have not
quite the same flavour as the ripe ones, but still they are
very good, and some people think them nicer than the
red ones when cooked.

Carrots are avery neglected vegetable in England, and
yet they are good in so many ways. The following is a
Belgian receipt :—Cut the red part into thin Julienne strips,

176 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

boil for fifteen minutes, drain, then put them intoa stew-
pan with a nice piece of butter, a little sugar, and cover
with light stock. Stew for about half an hour; then set
over the fire, and boil till they are nicely glazed. Young
Carrots are good done in the same way, but only take
about half an hour’s boiling. Carrots are excellent purée’d
like mashed Turnips. French Beans and Scarlet Runners
are very much better boiled whole, if not too old, only
partly drained, and butter added at the last; they should
be boiled enough to break wp when the butter is stirred
in. To be served very hot. For a second-course dish
cream may be added as well as butter. When French
Beans are old and the seed ripe, they cook as well as the
real white Haricots.

Every year I grow Red Cabbages, and cook them as
recommended in ‘ DaintyDishes.’ I also make large jars
of pickled Red Cabbage, most useful in the winter. The
following is a German receipt, and also good :—Cut the
cabbage as for chowcrowte. For three or four large cabbage
heads take }1b. of butter, put it into an earthenware
saucepan on a coal fire. When melted, add the cabbage,
salt, pepper, and a little flour and a large cupful of good
broth ; cover well, and let it cook for about an hour and
a half, turning it from time to time. During the last
half-hour add a glass of strong red wine.

Some years, and this has been one, the Siberian Crabs
ripen in great quantities. They look so lovely on the
tree, one hates to pick them; but the moment they are
ripe the missel-thrush clears every one off, with the same
rapidity with which he leaves us without a single berry
on the Mountain Ash in the summer. So we harden our
hearts, and gather them to make into jam, according to
the following receipt (the fruit of the Rosa rugosa can be
utilised in the same way) :—

Remove the stalks and well wash the fruit, put this

SEPTEMBER 177

into a preserving-pan with just enough water to cover
them ; boil until quite tender; then rub through a brass
wire sieve, and for every 1 lb. of pulp add 1 lb. of
sugar. After bringing to the boil, simmer for three-
quarters of an hour and put into jars. It will become
firm as it cools. It is, although not so clear, almost as
good as Currant jelly.

An immense improvement to stewed Apples or Apple
tart—if the crust be baked apart, as recommended in
‘March ’—is to put in four or five Peach leaves, fresh from
the trees, and take them out before serving; it gives the
Apples a most excellent flavour.

178 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

OCTOBER

Autumn mornings and robins—Italian Daturas—The useful ‘ Myti-
cuttah ’—Nerines—Three Cape greenhouse plants—Sweet Chest-
nuts—Other people’s gardening difficulties—Making new beds—
The great Apple time—French White Haricot—The stewing of
chickens and game—Re-planting Violas and Saxifrages— St.
Luke’s summer ’—Plants for August, September, and October—
London gardens.

October 1st.—Once more we are back in the month when
the robin sings so much. The robins, I find, are the
tamest of all the birds in a garden; and as we fork over
the beds, or dig new ones, they follow us all about,
enjoying much the newly turned-up earth. Almost the
prettiest lines in the ‘ Christian Year ’ are about the Robin
Redbreast, and were written by a friend of Keble’s. I
wonder if the ‘ Christian Year’ is read now, and is as well
known as it used to be? I will risk it, and recall the two
favourite little verses :—

TO THE REDBREAST

Unheard in summeyr’s flaring ray,
Pour forth thy notes, sweet singer,
Wooing the stillness of the autumn day ;
Bid it a moment linger,
Nor fly
Too soon from winter’s scowling eye.

OCTOBER 179

The blackbird’s song at eventide
And hers who gay ascends,
Telling the heavens far and wide,
Are sweet. But none so blends
As thine
With calm decay and peace divine.

The following four verses are, I think, very pretty,
and not likely to be generally known (I do not know who
wrote them) ; and how we do, all of us, ‘love the sweet fall
of the year’!—far the most beautiful of all the seasons
in England :—

I wondered this year—for the autumn was in,
The acacias were dark and the linden leaves thin,

And the south wind in coming and going was loud,
And odorous and moist, like the breath of a cloud—

I wondered and said, ‘ Then the autumn is here.
God knows how I love the sweet fall of the year ;
But the feeling of autumn is not in my brain ;
My God, give me joy in Thine autumn again.’

I woke in the morning, and out in the air

T heard the sweet robin his ditty declare,

And my passion of autumn came down from the skies,
And I leapt from my bed with the tears in my eyes.

Ah! robin, sweet robin, dost thou know the power
That comes on the heart with the fall of the flower,
The odour of winds, and the shredding of trees,
And the deepening of colour in skies and on seas ?

October 2nd.—How beautiful are these early autumn
mornings! Here, at any rate, they have qualities un-
equalled all through the long year. The flowers shine
with colour out of the grey mists, as they do at twilight in
the long summer evenings, and the gardens now are all
filled with dewy gossamer.

Two new autumn Crocuses have lately been brought
to my notice; one, C. speciosus, is very pretty standing up

N2

180 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

straight and strong on a border or rockery. Itisof avery
blue colour, with a centre of lovely stamens and stigma
forming a bright orange tassel. These species of Crocus
are much more satisfactory to grow in borders than the pale
Colchicums of the Swiss meadows, as they are true Cro-
cuses, and only form in spring slight narrow leaves instead
of the despairingly coarse growth of the Colchicums, which,
dying down in the end of May, make such an eyesore in
the borders ; it seems best therefore to plant the latter in
grass. My double and single Italian Daturas are later
this year than usual, owing to the wet weather; but they
are covered with blooms now, and very sweet. The
double ones will last longer in water, scenting a room,
than the single ones. We plant them out at the end of
May; and when they have been out three weeks or so, a
spade is passed round them to cut the roots, and a ditch
made, which is filled in with manure. This generous
treatment makes the whole difference in their flowering
well. I cannot say whether it would be necessary in a
damper soil, but I think it would, as cutting their roots in
spring stimulates them to flower earlier, before the frost
comes. The old plants are taken up and put into pots,
and housed for the winter. This is such a happy time of
the year for a gardener. There is a sense of power about
it; all the planting and planning and changing are done
now. One is loth to disturb beds till the frost comes
and kills things down ; but it is most desirable not to put
off planting, and to get everything done one can before
any real cold comes.

I am gradually clearing away nearly all the Laurels I
found on the place, only keeping those growing under
trees, and others that form a protection against the
north-east wind ; but even those few that are left want
constantly cutting back, as they soon encroach and choke
everything else. At the stores they sell a most excellent

OCTOBER 181

instrument for pruning, called the ‘Myticuttah.’ There
are some with long handles and some with short; they
cut through quite big branches like butter, and are really
indispensable. The work is not too tiring for any woman
to do herself, and everyone should have a strong pair of
French nippers as well, for cutting back smaller shrubs
and plants. One is always seeing in catalogues that this
plant or that will do for the borders of shrubberies. My
experience is that no summer herbaceous plants do in the
borders of shrubberies at all, though spring and autumn
things may do fairly well ; and many of the smaller shrubs,
like Lavender Cotton, Rosemary, and Brooms of sorts,
will hold their own in front of larger shrubs.

October 4th.—The Nerines (see Johnson’s ‘ Gardener’s
Dictionary’) have flowered well and been charming this
year. N. Fothergillw is the finest colour, but all are
most useful autumn bulbs, and last a long time in water.
They are easy to manage, and, like many Cape bulbs, flower
before the leaves are produced. During the growing of
the leaves they must be carefully attended to and
watered; and even, now and then, a small dose of liquid
manure does them good. They are best not re-potted,
except very rarely ; and as the leaves die down they must
be laid on their sides and dried and well baked in the
sun, just like the Freezias, only not shaken out and
re-potted, as recommended for them. The bulbs, too,
should be planted, like Vallotas or Hyacinths, well on the
top of the pot. I never can understand why these very
ornamental bulbs are not grown in larger quantities
especially as they increase and improve, instead of being
almost useless, as is the case with the spring bulbs after
forcing.

A Cape family of small, very sweet-smelling shrubs
called Diosma (see Johnson’s ‘ Gardener’s Dictionary ’) are
well worth growing ; in fact, no greenhouse ought to be

132. POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

without some of them. Their charm is principally in
their foliage and scent, as the flowers are insignificant.
They are easily increased by cuttings in spring under a
bell-glass. The growing of Cape plants is always
interesting. Small Cape Aloes have charming pink
flowers in spring, which last long in water, not unlike the
Lachenalias (see catalogues), all of which are worth
growing.

Leonotis leonwrus has not flowered out of doors with
me this year at all, either in large pots or planted out in
a bed. The plants were covered with buds, and so we
lifted them at the end of September, and put them into
the heat, where they have flowered well. This would be
worth while for anyone with plenty of room, as it is such
a handsome unusual flower when picked. Like the
Daturas, they may be extra late from the excessive
dryness of May and June, and the wet afterwards. It is
a Cape plant; there it forms large bushes covered with
bloom. Another African greenhouse plant well worth
growing is called Sparmannia africana. The covering
of the bud is white, and shows, when the flower opens,
between the four petals, forming an unusually pretty
star-shaped flower with a brush of yellow stamens
tipped with red.

We have a good many fine Sweet Chestnut trees,
and they ripen more or less well every year. We cook
them in a great many ways: boil them and shell them,
and warm them up in butter or with a little stock, as a
vegetable. They are very good made into a purée with
butter and cream, to eat with cutlets; or boiled and
rubbed through a wire sieve, to serve round whipped
cream well flavoured with sugar and vanilla. Of course
the cheap Chestnuts sold in London can all be cooked in
the same way, but only the best Italian Chestnuts are
good for roasting.

OCTOBER 183

October 8th.—I have been lately on the East Coast.
One cannot help being amused to find that gardening is
go like life, each one has his own difficulties. I was
suggesting to my friend to plant her Violets in leaf-
mould, when she said: ‘Why, we have not a single
leaf. The few there are on the dwarf trees blow away
into space.’ Oh! what a fight the poor plants have
with the salt-laden winds! But some things thrive and
flourish by the sea as they do nowhere else. I think the
sunk Dutch gardens, before described, will be found most
useful by the seaside.

October 14th.—It is a very good plan, when you want
to cut a new bed or alter the shape of an old one, to
shuffle along the wet dewy grass on an October morning
—and this leaves a mark which enables you very well to
judge of size, shape, and proportion—hefore you begin to
cut your beds out. I am taking up and replanting—in
the way before described of massing all the plants of
one colour together—my long herbaceous borders. These
borders run right across what was once a fair-sized lawn,
and the principle of the garden is to have it all beds and
low-growing shrubs, except the paths, which are turf ;
the main paths are left gravelled for the sake of dryness
in bad weather. I only replant the herbaceous borders
every four or five years, mulching them well every
winter; and even then it is best only to replant them
partially, as certain fine plants are much injured, if not
killed, by moving at all, and these plants remain as
landmarks both as regards height and colour for the
replanting of the borders. Keeping colours together and
some empty spaces for annuals or filling up in spring or
summer out of the reserve garden, makes it much easier
to prevent the borders looking dull and shabby at any
time during the summer months.

The large square beds are planted now with all kinds

184. POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

of spring-flowering things, not formally, but in broad
patches— Wallflowers, Forget-me-nots, Tulips, Silene,
Limnanthes douglasvi (a Californian annual much loved
by the bees), sowing a large patch of Love-in-the-mist
and the annual Gypsophila (for early flowering, sown in
September), Spanish Ivis, Pinks and Carnations, Madonna
Lilies, a large corner of Anemones, and another of Scabiosa
caucasica (see ‘English Flower Garden’), both these
grown originally from seed. And as the spring flowers
pass away, their places are filled up from autumn-sown
plants, Snapdragons, &c., which are quite hardy when
young and in the seed bed, but which get killed and
injured by cold winds in the open. Let everyone read
what is said in the ‘English Flower Garden’ on the
giant Saxifrages, Megaseas. There are several varieties,
all worth growing, and they are most useful, satisfactory
plants for all sorts of purposes, not nearly grown enough
for covering the ground and making fine masses of
low-growing foliage. To keep out weeds by planting
low-growing and spreading plants is a great secret of
gardens that are to have a picturesque appearance, and,
in fact, be a cultivated wilderness rather than a tidy
garden.

October 15th.—This is the great Apple time. All the
windfalls that take place in September and October we
collect, and either eat or stew down into Apple jelly. It
is very useful through the winter in many ways, and
injured Apples never keep.

Quince jam and jelly we also find good. This is an
old-fashioned receipt :—First boil the Quinces till soft,
for about half an hour; take off the outer thin skin.
Cut the Quinces in half, removing the core, and pulp
them. To every pound of Quince pulp add half a pint
of the water in which the Quinces were boiled. Peel
carefully and cut up some Blenheim Apples; add half a

OCTOBER 185

pound of Apples to every pound of Quince pulp, and
three-quarters of a pound of sugar to every pound of
fruit. Boil for three hours.

We find the ripe Beans of the Scarlet Runners very
good if well boiled, and then served with a little of the
water and a good bit of fresh butter stirred in just
before dishing up. Many years ago Mr. Bright, in the
‘Lancashire Garden,’ wrote: ‘One excellent vegetable I
have generally grown I would recommend to anyone
who has space to spare—the French White Haricot. It
is not often seen with us, though it is so very common in
France. It is a species of French Bean, of which you
eat the white bean itself instead of slicing up the pod. I
suspect that, taking England through, there are very few
gardens where the White Haricot is found.’ This was
true nearly twenty years ago, but the astonishing thing
is that it is true still. It is wonderful how rarely the
Haricot blanc is to be seen at English tables. Is this
the fault of the gardener or the cook? I suspect both.
It is very disheartening to grow vegetables the cook does
not know how to use. English housekeepers, so extrava-
gant about many things, are often curiously economical
on the subject of butter. To use that horrid, fatty, adul-
terated stuff called ‘kitchen butter’ with vegetables is
fatal ; it must be good fresh butter. There are only
two economies that generally rather wasteful people try
to practise—one is in coals, and the other is in butter.
Neither makes much difference in the year, and many
other things could be so well done without. Compared
to the expense of wine and meat, they are really nothing
at all. Vegetables should not be cooked in butter except
when really fried ; they should be boiled, and drained, and
warmed up, and cold butter stirred in just before serving.
Vegetables should not look or taste greasy, or rice either.

In the autumn those who keep fowls always have

186 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

some to get rid of that are better stewed than roasted.
The following is an old family receipt I have not seen
elsewhere :—

Poulet & la Turque.—Truss a chicken as for
boiling, put it in a deep fricandeau-pan, spread it thickly
with butter, and lay therein a dozen pieces of raw ham,
some carrots, onions, parsley, and a little nutmeg, pepper,
and salt; cover with a buttered paper. Braize it for one
hour. When it is dished, place round the chicken in
groups stewed rice, sultanas, and prunes. Pour a
lightly seasoned curry sauce over the chicken, and serve
more sauce in a sauce-boat apart, if desirable—especially
if there are two chickens.

People who have a good deal of game get rather tired of
the eternally roast pheasant or partridge with bread sauce.
The following is a good receipt to make a variety :—

Partridge or Pheasant a la Sierra Morena.—
Take a brace of partridges properly trussed. Cut into dice
1 inch thick a little less than 4 lb. of bacon, put them
into the stew-pan; cut 2 large onions in quarters, take
6 whole black peppers, a little salt, 1 bay-leaf, a } gill
of vinegar, 1 gill of port wine, 1 gill of water, 1 table-
spoonful of salad oil. Put all these ingredients into the
stew-pan with half a sheet of kitchen paper; stew on
a slow fire for 2 hours. Then take out the partridges
and dish them, and put round some of the quarters of
onions which have been stewed, pass the gravy through
a sieve, and send to table.

Just now the greengrocers’ shops in town and
country are full of very cheap large melons brought from
abroad. I find they make a very good compote if the
hard outside is taken off and the pulp cut into pieces
the size of a plum. Make a syrup of sugar flavoured
with the melon-peel, spice, bay-leaf, and a little powdered
ginger ; boil this up, and pour it over the pieces of melon.

ie ME aN 8) 7

OCTOBER 187

Turnips are often strong and hard with us. This
year they are delicious, and we have had a very pretty
dish—much appreciated—of small round Turnips boiled
tender, and served witha white sauce made of milk boiled
till it thickens, into which has been stirred a little butter
and cream.

Carrots, too, are delicious done in this way with the
addition of a little parsley and sugar.

The following is a good cake :—The weight in flour
of four eggs; beat to a cream, butter, sugar, rind of lemon
grated, a few Sultanas, and citron; then add the yelk of
each egg, one by one; then add the flour, and beat the
white of the eggs to a froth just before putting it into the
oven. Bake for half an hour in a flat tin dish.

October 18th.—I have at last succeeded in flowering
the Schizostylis coccinea. I am relieved to see that in
the new edition of the ‘ English Flower Garden’ this is
pronounced a great difficulty in a light dry soil. It is
probably owing to the very wet autumn we have had
that these little Cape bulbs have done so well. They
were planted in fairly good garden soil, under the pro-
tection and shade of a wall facing east; so they did not
get much sun except early in the year, when at rest; and
when they began to grow, they were watered till the rain
came. When the flower-spikes began to colour and
nearly open, as the nights were very cold, I cut them and
put them in water in a warm room, and they bloomed
quite well. Two or three sticks asa support, and mats or
newspaper thrown over them, help these late-flowering
plants in prematurely cold weather, which often lasts only
a day or two.

October 24th.—This is about the time we replant the
Violas and Saxifrages in the sunny beds, taking them
out of the shady border in the reserve garden. London
Pride is better taken up and divided every two years. As

188 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Saxifrages do not mind the dry springs, it is well worth
while to grow a quantity of London Pride, the bloom of
which resembles in colour a faint pink evening cloud ;
this is not only a satisfactory plant when picked, but it
will travel well, and makes a lovely support for Iceland
poppies and other flowers.

October 27th.—I have been taking up to-day the
Lobelia cardinalis and L. fulgens. Cardinalis is the one
with the dark leaves and the handsomer grower; the
other flowers rather the earlier.

October 28th.—With all the weeks and weeks of wet
we have had this year we have waited long for our ‘ St.
Luke’s Summer’; and now it has come at last, it is not
with its usual still, lovely warm days. It has come fine
and lovely, yes; but hand-in-hand with Jack Frost, and
the garden is cleared for the present of nearly every
bloom that was left.

A first foggy day! How beautiful it is in the country,
and what an endless pleasure when, at midday, the sun
conquers the mist !—reminding one of Milton’s simile at
the end of his description of his hero, Satan :—

. . As when the sun, new risen,
Looks tieoneh the horizontal misty air
Shorn of his beams.

And how useful are days like these in the country! There
is no such time for noticing the shapes of the groups of
shrubs and forms of plants, and what ought to be cut
away and what left as it is. Some low-growing plants
luxuriate so in the wet autumn days, they make us believe
no winter is coming—such as the foliage of Pinks and
Carnations, Sweet Williams, Golden Feverfew, and last,
but not least, another of the treasure weeds of a garden,
the common Marigold. Down the kitchen garden I have
a patch of border given up to the Marigolds, and they

OCTOBER 189

sow themselves over and over again, and flower at all
sorts of unexpected times. As they proudly defy early
frosts, they become really precious with their grand glow-
ing orange faces. Asis so often the case, the single ones,
with their varieties of dark and light centres, are prettier
than the double ones, though both may be grown to suit
all tastes, the colour always being good. No garden,
however small, should be without this patch devoted to
Marigolds. I do not dislike their pungent smell, as
many do.

The wet has kept the leaves long green and fresh on
the trees, but the cold of last night brought down at
once the great succulent leaves of some young Horse
Chestnuts not far from here. Just about this garden they
will not grow, as they so dislike the sand. As I passed
them to-day I noticed the leaves all lay in heaps, freshly
fallen round the slight stems, on the green grass, fold on
fold, in the low autumn sunshine. Very beautiful, like
Keats’s description in ‘ St. Agnes’ Eve’ of fair Madeline
unrobing :—

Of all its wreathéd pearls her hair she frees,
Unclasps her warméd jewels one by one,
Loosens her fragrant bodice ; by degrees

Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees,
Half hidden, like a mermaid in seaweed.

So the trees stood up this afternoon, with all their summer
clothing round their feet.

I always long at this time of the year to have been to
Japan to see one of their Chrysanthemum shows. I am
told our individual flowers are far finer, but their method
of arranging the shows is so superior to ours, and the
effect produced is naturally much more lovely. They
arrange them in bands and waves of colour, from the
darkest red to the palest pink, fading into white ; and up
again from pale lemon, yellow, and orange to the darkest

190 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

brown. Iam sure, even in small collections, picked and
unpicked Chrysanthemums look far better if the colours
are kept together in clumps, and not dotted about till the
general effect becomes mud-colour, as English gardeners
always arrange them, only considering their height or the
size of their unnaturally disbudded blooms. They are,
T admit, most beautiful and useful flowers. What should
we do without them? But owners of small places, and I
think even large ones, should guard against too much
time, attention, and room being given to them. For
putting into vases, there is no doubt Chrysanthemums
look better allowed to grow more naturally and not so
disbudded. A huge Chrysanthemum that is nearly the
size of a plate, though it may have won a prize at a local
flower-show, looks almost vulgar when picked. Bunches
of Chrysanthemums with their buds will go on blooming
a long time in water, and make in a room a natural and
beautiful decoration, instead of painfully reminding one of
the correctness of the flower’s paper imitations.

A kind gardening friend living in Lancashire has
written me out the following list of ornamental shrubs
and flowering plants which, for one reason or another,
look well in August, September, and October. I think,
though I mention several of the plants elsewhere, it
useful to give it in its entirety, as many are of opinion
that in those three months it is necessary to be entirely
dependent on bedded-out plants for colour and beauty.

Trees for autumn leaves and berries :—Ash (Moun-
tain), Cherry, Siberian Crab, Buckthorn (sea), Elder
(golden), Filbert (purple), Hawthorn, Hornbeam, Maple.

Creepers and shrubs for autumn :—Aristolochia
sipho, Arbutus, Azara microphylla, Berberis thunbergt,
Clematises of sorts, Clerodendron, Colutea, Cotoneaster,
Cydonia japonica, Dog-wood, Eecremocarpus scaber, Esca-
lonia macrantha, Huonymus (both Kuropean and latifolius),

OCTOBER 191

Gemsta, Heath, Hibiscus, Honeysuckle, Hydrangea
pamculata, Hypericum, Indigofera, Jasmine, Lawrus-
tinus, Lavender, Leycesteria formosa, Mahonia, Olearia
haasti, Pernettyas, Lithospermwm, Pyracantha, Prunus
pissardu, hus lacimata, Rosa rugosa, Roses (autumn),
Rosemary, Rubus (Brambles), Skimmuia, Snowberry, Spar-
tium gunceum, Tamarisk, Virginia Creeper, Vines of sorts.

Plants.—A<Achillea ptarmica flore pleno, Aconitum
(Monkshood), Adonis autwmnalis, Anemone japonica (most
useful, three shades), Asters, Michaelmas Daisies of
sorts, Ageratwm, Antirrhinum, Armeria cespitosa (Sea
Pink), Bergamot, Calendula, Marigold, Callistephus
(China Aster), Campanulas of sorts, Campion (Rose),
Canne, Centaurea, Chrysanthemum, Colchicum (autumn
Crocus), Convolvulus tricolor, Coreopsis lanceolata,
Cucurbita (Gourd), Cuphea zimpani (good annual),
Dahlias of sorts, Datura, Dianthuses of sorts, Desmodium,
Diplopappus, Echinops, Erigeron, Eryngiums of sorts,
EHxogomum purga (Jalap plant), Fuchsia, Funkias of
sorts, Gaillardia, Gaultheria, Gewm coccineum, Gladioli
of sorts, Gypsophila paniculata, Harpaliwm rigidum,
Helenium, Helianthuses of sorts (Sunflowers), Heli-
chrysum (Everlasting), Heliotrope, Hollyhock, Hyacin-
thus candicans, Hypericums of sorts, Ipomea (Convol-
vulus), Lathyrus (Sweet Pea), Lengogium autumnale,
Lilium tigrinum, Linaria, Linum, Lobelia cardinalis and
fulgens, Lunaria (Honesty), Mathiola (Stocks of sorts),
Oxalis, Pentstemons of sorts, Physalis alkekengi (Winter
Cherry), Phytolacca decandra, Plumbago carpente,
Polygonums of sorts, Poppies of sorts, Pyrethrum uli-
ginosum, eseda (Mignonette), Rudbeckia neumani,
Scabious of sorts, Statice latifolia, Tagetes (Marigold),
Tansy, Tritonia tropeolum, Nasturtiums of sorts, Vinca,
Periwinkle, Viola, Verbena, Yucca, Zinnia.

It seems hardly necessary to mention that many of

192 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

these plants flower earlier further South than they do in
Lancashire.

October 26th.—The French proverb, ‘ La variété c’est
la vie,’ always appeals to me in many things, especially
domestic ones. I know nothing such a test of a good
housekeeper as a periodic change of biscuits. Hvery-
body tires of the best biscuits in the world, and the new
shape and the old biscuits of better quality should ring
the changes. All through the summer a slight surprise
and pleasure comes at the end of a little dinner if a
buttonhole of sweet-smelling flowers and leaves are
carefully tied up (fine wire does them the least clumsily)
and dropped into the water in the finger-bowls. Nothing
should be used but what is really sweet—Lemon-
scented Verbena and Geranium leaves being the prin-
cipal foundation ; and in summer there ought always to
be plenty of these two in the smallest gardens.

I think it may be a little amusement or help to some
of you if I make a list of a few of my dinner-table
decorations during the six months in the country :—

April.—White Allium with greenhouse Asparagus,
red Geranium in low vases between, with no green.
Various spring flowers and blossoms arranged, each
separate, in small narrow-necked vases, having the effect
of a miniature spring garden.

May.—A Japanese arrangement of Clematis montana
and greenhouse Asparagus. Parrot Tulips in narrow
glasses all about the table. Pink ivy-leaved Geranium,
called Souvenir of Charles Turner, in a large flat glass in
the middle, and a pretty pink Pelargonium all round.
Oriental Poppies, no green. In the middle an arrange-
ment of German Iris of four or five different shades.
Perennial herbaceous Lupins, white and blue, with their
own lovely leaves; they must never be allowed to

OCTOBER 193

droop, but go at once into water. Lilies of the Valley
and Narcissus poeticus. Narcissus poeticus and Stachys
lanata.

June.—Iceland Poppies (three colours), Cornflowers.
and London Pride; no green ; very pretty, like a French-
woman’s bonnet. Herbaceous Peonies, white and pale
pink. Liliwm thunbergianwm and green. Gloire de
Dion Roses floating in water in flat vases, and green-
house Maidenhair Fern. Mrs. Sinkins Pink and Gypso-
phila elegans. Gypsophila and pink Shirley Poppies.
Yellow Snapdragons and Gypsophila; this was pretty
and uncommon. Mixed Roses. White Madonna Lilies
with various white flowers, and pale green.

July.—Yellow French Daisy and Gypsophila panicu-
lata. Small vases with blue Campanula turbinata. Calceo-
laria amplexicaule. Gypsophila paniculata, Nasturtiums,
and leaves of variegated ground Ivy. Clematis (Travellers’
Joy) trained up a Bamboo in the middle, wedged.
Mixed Carnations and Gypsophila paniculata. Carnation
(Lady Agnes) with own green, or from Mrs. Sinkins.

August.—W hite Sweet Pea and Gypsophila paniculata.
Branches of the Everlasting Pea laid on the tablecloth.
Salpiglossis and Gypsophila paniculata. Sweet Geranium
leaves and pink Ivy-leaved Geranium (Souvenir of Charles
Turner).

September.—Red Virginia Creeper leaves and
Geranium (Henry Jacoby). Single Helianthemums and
Carrot leaves of various shades. Red Virginia Creeper
leaves, Nasturtiums, and a large tray in the middle piled
up with fruit—apples, pears, peaches, grapes, &c.

October.—Single Dahlias and Venetian Sumach.
Greenhouse Chrysanthemums.

October 30th.—It is an excellent plan, if you have a
very sunny window that you are glad to have shaded in
Co)

194 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

the summer and not in winter, to put two bars of wood
like a bracket out from the wall as a support for one long
bar; or if your window is high, and so requires more
width to shade it, have two, or even three, bars across
the top. You plant on one side a Vine or a Wistaria,
and train it over this kind of wooden eyebrow. If you
have a Wistaria, the flowers hang through in spring; if
you have a Vine, the little bunches of grapes hang
charmingly along the top of your window in autumn. In
both cases the branches become quite bare at the first
frost, and so your room is not shaded at a wrong time
of year. I think this method of growing certain plants
usually grown against walls will please many plant-
loving people.

I have been so often asked about London gardens,
and in two cases have taken real and active interest in
them—one a small square piece of ground behind an old
house in Westminster; and another much larger, very
near the Addison Road Station. In all cases in and near
London I say, emphatically, ‘ Avoid evergreens.’ They get
black and miserable, and look horrid, even in winter;
though, if syringed and pruned, I think both Aucuba and
Box, and especially the latter, might be kept clean and
flourishing, and even prove useful for picking. Ivy, too,
on a wall facing north is often preferable to the bare
wall. I have said a great deal in August against
srowing Virginia Creeper and Ampelopsis veitchii,
because of its spoiling and hiding beautiful old houses ;
but in London, and where we want to hide, they are the
most useful and, indeed, invaluable Creepers that can be
planted. They have every merit, are quick growers in
any soil, graceful if pruned and cared for, and yet doing
well if left alone. Their growth in the spring and early
summer is full of beauty, and in London they hasten to
lose their leaves without colouring them.

OCTOBER 195

On the back of a house my parents built in ’41, in
Rutland Gate, was planted, I think, the first Virginia
Creeper I ever remember in London. In those days
beyond this house it was all fields and nursery gardens.
London was not then quite so black as it is now—not in
that part, at any rate. I well remember the beauty and
glory of this Virginia Creeper. It was never pruned,
and hung from top to bottom of the house in lovely
masses of falling foliage. Virginia Creepers, like many
other things, vary a little in their growths; one that
has its leaves out early in the spring is the best for
London. The Ampelopsis is prettier for being very
much starved, as the leaves keep smaller, and less like
the redundant growth at Boston, which I so condemned
before. But on the whole, even for London, I prefer the
growth of the common Virginia Creeper.

Autumn effects need never be thought of in London
at all. When people come back to the West End, after
the holidays, it is nearly winter. The poor leaves, choked
and smothered in soot, have fallen sadly and greyly to
the ground, leaving all their autumn glory to their more
fortunate country brethren ; and all can be swept clean
and tidy before anyone comes back. Amongst deciduous
shrubs all the ordinary common ones do very well,
and only want attention and pruning, and pulling-off of
suckers, as the same plants require in the country.
Privets, being half-deciduous, do very well also. Bamboos
are useless, as they are never in full beauty, even in the
country, tillthe autumn and winter. In all small gardens
it is my advice to avoid turf, and especially in London.
Tt never looks well, and is expensive and troublesome to
maintain, which is one reason the day-gardener likes it.
Have as wide a border all round the wall as you can
afford, and some red gravel or a bricked or tiled square in

the middle of the garden to sit on.
02

196 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Have a sunk tub, in the sun, under a tap, from which
to fill a watering-pot, to water more delicate things; and
do not hose too much, especially if your soil is damp,
except in very warm weather. On the walls have Ribes
sanguineum and Forsythias, as they flower very early.
Vines and Fig-trees, white Jasmine, and Jasminum nudi-
florum, all do well in London. Wherever there is room
on the walls facing south put the deciduous Magnolias
(see ‘English Flower Garden’). The Magnolia grandi-
jiora has such polished and very shiny leaves ; it grows
very well near London. I remember some very fine
plants of the same that used to grow in gardens at
Walham Green and Fulham, where in my youth people
gave what are now called garden-parties and used then
to be called ‘ Breakfasts’ —why, I do not know, as they
never began till three o’clock in the afternoon. Perhaps
the French refugees brought in the fashion of such enter-
tainments, full of the recollections of the déjewné champétre
of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. and their Courts.

I know a Magnolia in Addison Road—lI think it must
be a M. conspicua—that, though crowded up and appa-
rently neglected, flowers most beautifully every spring,
nearly as well as the famous one which is such a marked
ornament every year inthe Champs Elysées. A Forsythia
at the corner of Marlborough House garden in the early
spring has often excited my admiration. I quote these
examples to show that plants will grow and flower in
London still, if well chosen and eared for.

For the borders, I recommend no edging; it is ex-
pensive and useless. The gravel is enough; and it is,
I think, prettier to disguise the fact of a line than to
accentuate it. Plant what you have in bold clumps—
the tall plants, of course, at the back ; but rather in waves
of height, with bays of the front low-growing things,
running back towards and under the wall. Anything

OCTOBER 197

looks better than a row of planis all the same, or nearly
the same, height. There are the line of the wall and the
line of the path. Your object must be, not to repeat these,
but to work into your border that which makes either
beautiful form or beautiful colour, or both at the same
time. Do not repeat your clumps over and over again.
For instance, if you have a good number of German Irises
(many of which grow admirably in London), put them into
two large groups—one facing east or south (which is the
best) and the other facing north or west. In this way
you may hope for a succession, an object that anyone
who plants for flowering reasons ought never to have out
of their mind. Spanish Irises would, I believe, do very
well in a London garden if planted every year in a sunny
corner in October. They are not expensive (see cata-
logues). Buy no double or even single Dutch Hyacinths ;
they are not worth it. They last a very short time, are
often injured by the weather, and can be seen in the
Parks in mournful and irritating regularity and perfection.
Buy Snowdrops, Crocuses, Scillas (see ‘English Flower
Garden’), especially S. hispanica, blue, white and pink
(though the pink one is rather the least pretty), S. bifolia,
S. sibirica, S. italica, and our own common Blue-bells
(Wood Hyacinths), S. nutans. I think the only real
Hyacinth worth trying would be the early Roman. The
only seed I would recommend sowing in place is
Mignonette, and that would want watering. For all other
annuals, and many other things that are not annuals, I
would pocket my gardening pride and act in the follow-
ing manner :—In April, and again in May, make out from
the books a short or long list of plants, those common
things that you would like to have, which flower early.
Send or go to Covent Garden, taking « basket with you,
and buy the seedlings there two or three inches high;
bring them back, plant them at once, and water them

198 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

and watch them. Plants are just like children; itis a
keen, watchful, ever-attentive, thoughtful eye they require
—not, figuratively speaking, pulling up by the roots to see
how they are getting on. If you cannot go to Covent
Garden, go to the nearest nurseryman, and try and get
there what you want. I would buy Daisies, Forget-me-
nots, Violas, Pansies, common Marigolds, Nasturtiums,
blue Lobelias, Geraniums, Sweet Verbenas—in fact,
nearly all the things you see. Only make notes year by
year as to what does best, and try to learn for yourself
whut likes full sun and what likes half-shade, and what
can be planted in April and what not till the end of May.
I believe in this way a very bright London garden might
be seen—during May, June, and July, at any rate—ata
very small expense.

Sowing your own seeds takes too long, and is too un-
certain without a hot-bed. Do not put off planting all
the hardy plants too late. London is warmer than the
country, and your great object ought to be to get things
early. All Pinks, Saxifrages (especially London Pride),
Ferns, and all the hardy perennials you like to try, ought
to be planted in October, at the same time as the bulbs.
The Campanulas named in June would do well in small
London gardens ; the shade of the walls and the moisture
would suit them excellently. Perhaps they might want
water, if the weather was very dry, to help them to flower.

There are often a few cold nights at the end of May,
when the icebergs are floating South—those wonderful,
beautiful ice-mountains, once to have seen, never to be
forgotten; they have eight times their height below the
water, and this keeps them straight as they float onwards,
glittering in the sunshine. Beautiful as they are to those
who see them, they are cruel destroyers of our poor un-
certain spring weather. A very good plan on cold nights
is to throw over your plants some newspapers, held down

OCTOBER 199

by stones; or if you cover up some wicker or wire hen-
coops with muslin, they will keep out five or six degrees
of frost. These protections can be removed in the morn-
ing. All spring-watering should be done in the morning,
not in the evening; and it is better to add a very little
warm water than to use very cold water out of pipes.
The handsomest, easiest-grown, hardiest, most useful
plant for London gardens is the Polygonum cuspidatuwm
(there is a lovely drawing of it, by Mr. Alfred Parsons, in
Mr. Robinson’s ‘ Wild Garden’) ; but its whole beauty and
utility, as I have said before, depends on taking up the
suckers as they appear in early spring. Without that, the
plant is a useless weed ; but treated as | recommend, I am
sure no one can be disappointed with this strong-growing
herbaceous plant. The larger-leaved kind, P. sacchali-
nensis, is very good also, if you have room for both,
but it has not quite such a beautiful up-standing and
yet graceful growth.

I think the Bocconia cordata would also do in London
gardens, as it is a very handsome herbaceous plant, and
comes to perfection early, throwing up its feathery blooms
in July. None of the Primrose family are any good in
London; the leaves are too woolly.

Do not allow the beds to be dug over or pulled
about in the autumn; it is a very bad plan. Consciously
or unconsciously the man digs everything up, and I
believe many a gardener thinks it is good for trade!

No Roses are worth trying in or near London, though
a few are growing in Holland House Gardens that look
fairly healthy; but that is a very large open space, and
they are old-established bushes, which have been there a
long time. I think that most beautiful shrub, Hu, angea
paniculata, might do well; it is best cut d¢ vn every
March, and is such a beautiful thing. It likes a strong soil,
but flowers rather late for those who leave London early.

i98 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

and watch them. Plants are just like children; itis a
keen, watchful, ever-attentive, thoughtful eye they require
—not, figuratively speaking, pulling up by the roots to see
how they are getting on. If you cannot go to Covent
Garden, go to the nearest nurseryman, and try and get
there what you want. I would buy Daisies, Forget-me-
nots, Violas, Pansies, common Marigolds, Nasturtiums,
blue Lobelias, Geraniums, Sweet Verbenas—in fact,
nearly all the things you see. Only make notes year by
year as to what does best, and try to learn for yourself
whut likes full sun and what likes half-shade, and what
can be planted in April and what not till the end of May.
I believe in this way a very bright London garden might
be seen—during May, June, and July, at any rate—ata
very small expense.

Sowing your own seeds takes too long, and is too un-
certain without a hot-bed. Do not put off planting all
the hardy plants too late. London is warmer than the
country, and your great object ought to be to get things
early. All Pinks, Saxifrages (especially London Pride),
Ferns, and all the hardy perennials you like to try, ought
to be planted in October, at the same time as the bulbs.
The Campanulas named in June would do well in small
London gardens; the shade of the walls and the moisture
would suit them excellently. Perhaps they might want
water, if the weather was very dry, to help them to flower.

There are often a few cold nights at the end of May,
when the icebergs are floating South—those wonderful,
beautiful ice-mountains, once to have seen, never to be
forgotten; they have eight times their height below the
water, and this keeps them straight as they float onwards,
elittering in the sunshine. Beautiful as they are to those
who see them, they are cruel destroyers of our poor un-
certain spring weather. A very good plan on cold nights
is to throw over your plants some newspapers, held down

WAR, beh ae
‘hw

OCTOBER 199

by stones; or if you cover up some wicker or wire hen-
coops with muslin, they will keep out five or six degrees
of frost. These protections can be removed in the morn-
ing. All spring-watering should be done in the morning,
not in the evening; and it is better to add a very litile
warm water than to use very cold water out of pipes.
The handsomest, easiest-grown, hardiest, most useful
plant for London gardens is the Polygonum cuspidatum
(there is a lovely drawing of it, by Mr. Alfred Parsons, in
Mr. Robinson’s ‘ Wild Garden’) ; but its whole beauty and
utility, as I have said before, depends on taking up the
suckers as they appear in early spring. Without that, the
plant is a useless weed ; but treated as I recommend, I am
sure no one can be disappointed with this strong-growing
herbaceous plant. The larger-leaved kind, P. sacchal-
-nensis, is very good also, if you have room for both,
but it has not quite such a beautiful up-standing and
yet graceful growth.

I think the Bocconia cordata would also do in London
gardens, as it is a very handsome herbaceous plant, and
comes to perfection early, throwing up its feathery blooms
in July. None of the Primrose family are any good in
London; the leaves are too woolly.

Do not allow the beds to be dug over or pulled
about in the autumn; it is a very bad plan. Consciously
or unconsciously the man digs everything up, and I
believe many a gardener thinks it is good for trade!

No Roses are worth trying in or near London, though
a few are growing in Holland House Gardens that look
fairly healthy; but that is a very large open space, and
they are old-established bushes, which have been there a
long time. I think that most beautiful shrub, Hydrangea
paniculata, might do well; it is best cut down every
March, and is sucha beautiful thing. It likes a strong soil,
but flowers rather late for those who leave London early.

200 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Lilies of the Valley do very well in London if planted under
a wall; facing east is the best position, and they should
be left alone. Most of the hardy Lilies would thrive if
planted in October, especially the scarlet Lily, Liliwm chal-
cedonicum, which flowers early. One reason why London
gardens do so badly very often is that they are neglected
in September and October. Wallflowers are best planted
in September; and I am afraid many beginners fail to
realise what are annuals and what are not, and the
greater the difficulties the greater the care necessary. I
saw once in a review of an American book on gardening
that the late springs and the early heat in parts of
America made the growing of many of the larger annuals
a great difficulty, as they could not be sown out of doors
early enough. The reviewer quoted the author of the
book’s statement of how she ingeniously devised the follow-
ing method :— Determined not to be beaten, she grew the
single seeds in empty egg-shells stuck into boxes of sand ;
when the time came for planting, and the little seed had
grown, the shell was just broken and the whole thing
dropped into the ground where it was to grow. In this
way she got Poppies, &c., to flourish—plants that will not
bear moving at all, as a general rule. I mention this as
an example of the whole spirit of gardening, a patient
conquering of difficulties. Riding on the crest of the
wave that tries to submerge us is one of the phases of
our existence that makes life most satisfactory and worth
living, and it is the secret of all progress. If gardening
were easy, even under favourable circumstances, we
should none of us care to do it.

It must strike everyone when driving through the
streets of London in the summer how elaborately ugly is
the planting of many of the window-boxes. What seems
to me to Jook best is to keep the flowers as distinct and as
unmixed as possible. To set out plants that are not really

OCTOBER 201

hardy before the end of May is waste of money, and gives
me a feeling of unloving ignorance of plants which is as the
murdering of the innocents to those who are fond of
them. A pretty mixture is the yellow French Marguerite
with two or three—according to the size of the box—little
upright Cryptomeria japonicas, either in the middle or at
each end of the box, according to the shape of the window.
White French Daisies do just as well, if preferred.
Calceolarias and white Daisies are also pretty. I have
lived so little in London in the summer of late years that
I am more prepared to criticise than to suggest. One
day I saw outside a dining-room window some large,
heavy, oblong Japanese flower-pots planted with single
plants, and they looked very well, as one was able to see
the growth of the plants. These Japanese pots are glazed,
and much thicker than the ordinary flower-pot, and thus
lessen evaporation and the risk of being blown over. No
plants can possibly succeed on balconies or windows in
ordinary English flower-pots unless they are sunk in
boxes or other pots as a protection from the sun and
wind.

202 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

NOVEMBER

Letting in the autumn sun—Jerusalem Artichokes—Hardy Bamboos
—Polygonum cuspidatum—Autumn flowers—Small Beech-trees
—Last day in the country—Some gardening books of this
century.

November 2nd.—I recommend housekeepers to take
down about the end of October all muslin curtains, silk
blinds, &c., which shade the windows, only keeping such
curtains as are drawn at night for warmth. The differ-
ence it makes in the appearance of the room is very
pleasant. In all manner of ways possible—in our house
and gardens, in our cooking and dress—the adapting our-
selves as well as we can to the changing seasons is
sensible and desirable; it gives point and variety to
existence, especially for those who live most of the year
in one place. In the case of the south windows in our
sitting-rooms the pouring-in of the low winter sun is
delightful— le soleil de Saint Martin,’ as the French play
had it, comparing it to the love of an old man, ‘qui
échauffe et ne braile pas.’ It is only just now we enjoy
this very low sun. It is a great delight to watch the
changing year, and how differently the sun affects the
house and garden. In summer he shines high above our
heads, beating and burning on the roof; and in winter he
bows and smiles at us just above the tree-tops.

November 8th.—To-day we have had our first dish
of preserved French Beans out of the salt pan, before

NOVEMBER 203

described ; and they are really delicious, just as if they
had been freshly picked in August.

I suppose everybody knows that Jerusalem Artichokes
are much better if left in the ground and only dug up as
they are wanted, though before hard frost they must be
dug up and housed. This vegetable is amongst the most
useful ones we have in the winter, as it can be cooked in
such a great number of ways. It is one of the things
much improved by growing from fresh seed, and not
planting the old tubers over and over again. The
Artichokes can be made into soup, can be purée’d like
Turnips, or fried in thin slices like Potato chips. ‘ Dainty
Dishes’ has one receipt for cooking them. The only way
in which they are not very good is the ordinary English
way—plain boiled, with a floury butter sauce. The best
way of allis aw gratin, like the Maccaroni-cheese in‘ Dainty
Dishes’; only they require more sauce. Everything au
gratin is very much improved by using half Parmesan,
half Gruyére, and a very small piece of shallot. I used
to think this plant, from its name ‘Jerusalem’ being
derived from the Italian Girasole, with its curious English
amplification into ‘ Palestine Soup,’ was perhaps the only
Sunflower (Helianthus) that had not come from America,
and might have been brought here by the Crusaders; but
all this is not the fact. It does come from America; and
a curious confirmation of the same is that the French
name is Topinambour, a corruption of Topinambout, a
native tribe in the Brazils, whence the plant comes.

November 6th.—The last few days there has been
quite a hard frost, and last night our garden thermometer
registered ten degrees. This means, of course, death to
everything not quite hardy; and even the hardiest hang
their heads, and flop their leaves and look dying, though
we know it is only affectation, and that a steady rain,
bearing in every drop heat from the tropics, will revive

204 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

many things again. I confess I like these sudden deaths.
in Nature. When the time comes, it is better that things
should go, than linger on, as,they do in very mild autumns.
Never since I have lived here have the berries of the
Pyracanthus and Holly been so fine; the latter are
covered with berries. In old days they used to say it
meant a cold winter and a providential providing of food
for the birds. Now we say it means a fine spring and a
wet autumn, which is just what we have had this year ;
but a wet autumn may mean a cold winter.

November 9th.—One or two hardy Bamboos should
be in all gardens, because of their appearance just now,
apart from all other reasons. The ‘English Flower
Garden’ gives the best kinds, which must be selected
according to the size of the garden and the situation in
which they are to be placed. They by no means require
to be planted in wet places—in fact, I imagine it is that
which kills them in winter—but a few cans of water
daily in dry weather, at their quick-growing time of May
and June, helps them very much to throw off sooner that
shabby appearance in spring which is one of their draw-
backs. Another drawback is that they live such a short
time in water after they are picked. The Japanese have
many devices for preserving them; the simplest of these
is burning their ends in the fire before putting them into
water. This answers with many flowers. In a small
garden, Bamboos look much better for thinning out every
year ; and the long canes make very useful, tidy sticks for
pot-plants. At this time of year, when all else is dying
or dead, they are healthfully and luxuriantly green. I
have found by experience that, if Bamboos are really
injured by frost, it is best to cut them down entirely the
following spring. It requires some courage to cut out
the tall, well-grown canes ; but, once nipped by frost, they
do not recover, and they make better plants the following
year if cut right back.

NOVEMBER 205

It is well worth while for anyone walking round the
kitchen garden in November to pick the few remaining
frost-bitten pods of the Scarlet Runners. When gathered
and opened, what a treat of colour they display !—recalling
wet shells on the seashore, mottled and marked, and of
a rich deep purple, and no two alike. I grow Scarlet
Runners singly, or two or three together, between the
Apple-trees; and it is a good plan, as they bear much
better than when planted in rows in the open, and look
much prettier. They creep up into the branches of the
Apple-trees; the growth is so light it does no harm,
while it protects the late pods from frost.

The dear, bare branches of my favourite Polygonum
cuspidatum, here planted in a hole in the grass, look
lovely now at this time of the year, red in the sunshine
against a background of evergreens. I have now on the
table before me—cold and grey as it is out of doors—
Marigolds, Tea-rose buds (that are opening in the room,
and looking so pretty with a shoot of their own brown
leaves), Neapolitan Violets, some branches of small white
Michaelmas Daisies, and of course Chrysanthemums—
those autumn friends we are half tired of, and yet we
could go little do without. Another striking feature in
the garden just now are some small Beech-trees, quite
small, grown and cut back as shrubs are pruned. In a
soil where Beech-trees do not grow naturally, it is well
worth while to have them in this way, because of their
peculiarity of retaining on their branches the red dry
leaves more than half through the winter, causing a
distinct point of colour against the evergreen shrubs.

November 14th.—This is my last day in the country,
calm and warm. I eat my luncheon by the open window.
All Nature is very, very still, the silence broken now and
then by the chirp of a bird and the distant crow of a cock
in some neighbour’s yard ; the sky is pearly and grey, and
soft light-grey mists hang about, just enough to show up

206 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

the glory of some autumn bush or leaf. In front of the
window there are some little delicate leaves of one of the
shrubby Spirsas, planted on purpose to shine, coral and
gold, late in the year. It does not matter about its being
planted in a choice bed, as its growth is not coarse ; if it
looks a little dried up in summer, it is not noticed when
all the flowers are about. The dear little black and white
pigeons—‘ Nuns,’ they are called—-with outspread wings,
are flying down to feed. The flight of a pigeon is so
beautiful ; no wonder Dante immortalised it in the famous
lines in the Paolo and Francesca episode, That old cynic,
Voltaire, used to say that Dante’s fame would always
grow, because he is so little read.

As I sit and watch, the low yellow winter sun bursts
out, illuminating all things. To-morrow he will not
shine for me, as I shall be in that horrid dark London,

One other morbid little poem, appropriate to this time
of year, I think I must give you, for it used to be a great
favourite of mine in past days, before the cheerfulness of
old age came upon me. If I ever knew who was the
author, I have forgotten it now :

LA MELANCOLIF

Que me dis-tu, morne vent d’automne—
Misérable vent ?

Toi dont la chanson douce et monotone
Jadis charmait tant ?

Tu me dis, hélas! qu’amour et jeunesse
M’ont fait leurs adieux .. .

Kt du fond de Vime un flot de tristesse
Me déborde aux yeux !

Tu me dis, trop bien, ot le sentier mdne
Que Vespoira fui...

Et ton chant piteux, traduisant ma peine,
Triple mon ennui.

NOVEMBER 207

Ce mal qui courbait sur mon foyer vide
Mon front désolé—

Ta complainte, O vent, et ton souffle humide
Me l’ont réyvélé ;

C’est le mal des ans—c’est la nostalgie
Des printemps perdus ;

Vit ton vieux refrain n’est qu’une élégie
Sur ce qui n’est plus!

Modern Gardening Books.—In the month of March
I finished noticing the books in my possession up to the
end of the last century. I begin again with this century,
and shall carry them down to the present day.

1803. (An XI.) ‘Le Jardin de la Malmaison.’ By
Ventenat. Illustrated by P. J. Redouté. In two folio
volumes. This is one of my great possessions—a hand-
some book, sumptuously produced, as was likely to be
at the time, dedicated as it is to Madame Bonaparte, just
at the height of her power and influence. The implied
flattery in the dedication to her is as large and magnificent
as the paper is beautiful and the printing perfect. On
the title-page is a little motto in Latin, saying that if the
praises of the woods are to be sung, the woods should be
worthy of the Consul. The book is an obvious imitation
of Jacquin’s ‘ Flora Schoenbrunnensis.’ The illustrations
are, I think, less artistic and certainly less strong than
Jacquin’s. They are not hand-coloured, like his, but are
very fine examples of the best and most delicate (then
newly discovered) method of colour-printing. The reason
why Redouté’s work is artistically inferior to Jacquin’s
is, that in his delicate rendering of the flowering branch
he always puts it exactly in the centre of the page, without
reference to its size or growth. The plates are at the
end of each volume, and the descriptive text, which is in
French, at the beginning. Poor Joséphine! She was so
fond of her gardens; and I am told there is still an order

208 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

preserved in our Admiralty that, when French ships were
captured in the war, any plants or seeds that were on
board for Madame Bonaparte were to be expedited. That
Was a gracious order ; and gardening in those days meant
so much more than it does now. A flower blooming then
was an interesting event all over Europe, and the gentle
perfume of it rose and permeated through the smoke and
din of the Napoleonic wars. Nevertheless, there always
have been, and there always will be, those who would
rather sing the old French rhyme :

Jardiner ne m’amuse guére,
Moi je voudrais faire la guerre.

Redouté, the artist, in this fine Napoleonic book plays
only a secondary part to Ventenat :

1805. (An XIV.) ‘La Botanique de J. J. Rousseau,
ornée de soixante-cing planches d’aprés les peintures de
P. J. Redouté.’ Apparently Redouté brought out this
book to please himself, for it is a reprint of Rousseau’s
‘Elementary Letters on Botany to a Lady.’ It has
sixty-five such beautiful illustrative plates, exquisitely
drawn and colour-printed like the last. Were ever such
beautiful things done for those who wished to adapt
natural flowers to chintzes, needlework, or wall-papers ?
French artists, no matter of what school or of what
period, always excel all others in the beauty of their
actual draughtsmanship. Among these illustrations there
is a very fine old-fashioned dark-red single Chrys-
anthemum called Astrede Chine: I have never seen any-
thing in the least like it growing. The Daisy and the
Dandelion, too—were they ever more beautifully or more
sympathetically rendered? Everything done is in honour
of botany, nothing as a representation of a flower worth
growing. The text is in French.

My other Redouté book is a very charming one, though
my large octavo edition is, alas! not the best, which is a

NOVEMBER 209

folio in three volumes. The title-page states that the
drawings have been reduced, re-engraved, and coloured
under the eye of Monsieur Redouté, 1824. He had now
become famous. The title is ‘Les Roses, par P. J.
Redouté, avec le texte par C. A. Thorry ’—the order of the
artist and author being just reversed from that in the work
of his early days, ‘ Le Jardin dela Malmaison.’ The book
begins with the following charming sentence :—‘ Les
poétes ont fondé dans l’opinion les seules monarchies
héréditaires que le temps ait respectées: le lion est
toujours le roi des animaux, l’aigle le monarque des airs,
et la rose la reine des fleurs. Les droits des deux
premiers établis sur la force et maintenus par elle
avaient en eux-mémes la raison suffisante de leur durée ;
la souveraineté de la rose, moins violemment reconnue
et plus librement consentie, a quelque chose de plus
flatteur pour le tréne et de plus honorable pour les
fondateurs.’

Anyone who cares about Roses ought to try and see
this book at the Botanical Library of the Natural History
Museum at South Kensington, as it is very full of sug-
gestions. Had I a soil that suited Roses, and room to
grow them in, I should try and make a collection of the
wild Roses of the world and the roses figured by Redouté
in 1824,many of which I have never seen. The Banksia
Rose, which now covers the walls all along the Riviera, is
here called Le Rosier de Lady Banks (wife of the botanist
Sir Joseph Banks). There are Moss Roses and China
Roses, and every form and kind of Eglantine ; but nothing
larger or more double than the Cabbage Rose. The
Malmaison Rose, though called after Josephine’s garden,
must have been a much later introduction. In fact, in
1824 there were no Roses and no Strawberries in our sense
of the word. Even what is now called the Old Maiden’s
Blush is not in the book. The R. lucida, which I grow

P

210 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

successfully in Surrey (for it is easy of cultivation, and has
a lovely foliage), the York and Lancaster, and the Centi-
folia are all in this book. Even my small edition I look
upon as one of my chief treasures; it is bound in an
old-fashioned bright-green leather. I suppose few people
have seen this book, otherwise I cannot imagine how
anyone has ever had the courage to publish the modern
illustrated Rose books with pictures that look so coarse
and vulgar in comparison with these delicate coloured
prints.

1804. ‘Exotic Botany, by James Edward Smith,
President of the Linnean Society; figures by James
Sowerby. Two volumes in one.’ This book is, of course,
an English one, but on the title-page is the following
quotation from Rousseau’s seventh ‘Promenade.’ I copy
it, as it expresses the feeling of the times :—

‘Tl ya dans la botanique un charme qu’on ne sent
que dans le plein calme des passions, mais qui suffit seul
alors pour rendre la vie heureuse et douce: mais sitdt
qu’on y méle un motif d’intérét ou de vanité .. . . tout
ce doux charme s’évanouit. On ne voit plus dans les
plantes que des instruments de nos passions, on ne
trouve plus aucun vrai plaisir dans leur étude. . . . On
ne soccupe que de systémes et de méthodes; matiére
éternelle de dispute, qui ne fait pas connaitre une plante
de plus . . . . de 1a les haines, les jalousies,’ &c.

I wonder if it will strike anyone on reading this that
the sins of the botanist have been inherited in some degree
by the modern gardener ?

The book is dedicated to William Roscoe of Liver-
pool. Rare and interesting plants from all parts of the
world are figured here, and many of them are uncommon
to this day. Some are. familiar garden plants, such as
Rosemary-leaved Lavender Cotton, which, the author
tells us, ‘Clusius says he met with on the sloping sides

NOVEMBER 211

of some hills near Narbonne, in the year 1552, when
travelling with his friend, the celebrated Rondeletius,
from Carcassonne to Montpellier. It is said to grow in
other parts of the South of France, as well as in Spain,
chiefly on open hills near the coast. It bears our
elimate in the open border, flowering, though very rarely,
in August. We receive it from the Botanic Garden of
Liverpool by favour of Mr. John Shepherd.’

Such a passage, one of many, seems to stretch a
hand across the centuries, and explains the kind of
charm these old books have for those who like them.
The plates are carefully drawn and well coloured. This
book contains many plants from New Holland which
must then have been rare; some are noted as grown in
gardens at Paddington, some as never having flowered
in Europe at all. It is certainly an interesting book.

1810. ‘The Gardener’s Kalendar,’ by Walter Nicol.
This is the earliest of my gardening directories, and it
is not illustrated. It is an excellent little book, but one
learns nothing from it except that nearly all we know
now was known then.

1810. ‘A Small Family Herbal,’ by R. J. Thornton,
M.D., interesting as it claims to be illustrated by Thomas
Bewick. The little woodcuts of plants and flowers are
charming. The arrangement of the book is sensible and
clear, and has, at the end of the medical part, some
receipts for currant wine, elder wine, &c.

1812. ‘A Family Herbal,’ by Sir John Hill, M.D.
The illustrations are coarse, and not well drawn, though
hand-painted. Itis a typical book of the day, when there
were so many of the same kind.

1812. ‘The New Botanic Garden. Illustrated with
133 plants, engraved by Sansom from the original
pictures, and coloured with the greatest exactness from
drawings by Sydenham Edwards.’ There is considerable

P2

212 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

boldness and character about these drawings of ordinary
garden plants and flowers, but the colour has changed
on several of them. Like other books of the period, the
flowers are illustrated and described in an absolutely
chance and desultory way; the only exception is when
the authors confine themselves to one family, like
Andrews’ ‘ Heathery,’ or Jacquin’s ‘ Oxalises.’ What is
striking in all these books is the beautiful paper and
printing. The drawing and painting are just beginning to
decline. 3

1814 (about). ‘The Botanic Garden,’ by B. Maund.
T think this the most useful, from a modern gardener’s
point of view, of all the old books in my possession.
Nothing approaches it for instructiveness in herbaceous
plants till we get to Robinson’s ‘ English Flower Garden.’
The complete set, consisting of sixteen volumes, is diffi-
cult to find, though odd volumes or broken sets are often
advertised. This lovely ‘Botanic Garden’ is arranged
on an entirely new system. Itis purely gardening and
botany, no medicine at all. The volumes are quarto,
and the illustrated page is divided into four. Hach
square is filled with an illustration from a flowering
plant every one of which—from the tallest Hollyhocks
to the smallest Alpine—is drawn exactly the same size,
to fill the space. This, to my mind, is a grave fault,
continued to this day in flower illustration.

In some of the old Dutch books which I have seen,
but, alas! do not possess, they had a plan of drawing the
flowering branch, life size, in the middle of the page, with
a small drawing in the corner representing the growth
of the whole plant. This is a sensible and instructive
method. I should like all flower illustration to be
exactly the size of a fine specimen in Nature, quite
regardless of filling or non-filling the page. To give a
correct impression of the plant illustrated is very much

NOVEMBER 213

more important than attempting to make uniform or
even artistic pictures.

But to return to Maund. The letterpress follows the
illustrations, one page to each plant, and the following
characteristics are given above the drawing in every
case :—(1) Name of country the plant comes from, (2)
height, (3) when it flowers, (4) duration of plant, (5) when
first cultivated. This gives, at a glance, a comprehensive
idea of the plant. There are constant allusions through
the book to Parkinson, Gerarde, and other old botanists.
The earlier plates are far superior, better drawn, and
more delicately coloured than those in the later volumes.
In the twenty-five years which were covered by the serial
issue of this publication the decline of flower-painting
marched apace.

1814. ‘Flore Médicale. Décrite par F. P. Chaume-
ton, Docteur en Médecine. Peinte par Madame E. P——
et par P. J. F. Turpin.’ This is a lovely book in eight
octavo volumes. The illustrations are most delicate and
fine, and in the Redouté manner. He influenced all
flower-painting at that time in Paris, professional as well
as amateur. Flower-painting only ceased to be good
when it was no longer considered the handmaid of
botany and medicine, which necessitated quite a different
order of merit and precision from what was required for
mere flower illustration for gardening purposes. One of
the useful and uncommon idiosyncrasies of this book is
that at the top of each page describing the plate the
name of the plant is given in seven European languages.
The curative properties of various medicines are named,
but there are, alas! no cooking receipts. This is what
is said about Cardoons, the vegetable so little used in
England because the cooks do not know how to dress
it :—

‘Le Cardon Cynara cardunculus dont les feuilles

216 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

contain was constantly superseded by newer books;
faith in herbalism died out; and the beautiful herbaceous
plants were swept away from our gardens. I suppose
I did not look out for these books, knowing nothing of
them; but I never saw one of them till I began to be
interested in them and to collect them five or six years
ago.
E 1825. ‘The Manse Garden,’ which has long been
out of print, I have. Canon Hllacombe praises it most
warmly and justly at the end of his ‘Gloucestershire
Garden,’ published last year. It has no name and no
date, but he says it was written by the Rev. N. Patter-
son, at that time—nearly seventy years ago—Muinister of
Galashiels and afterwards a leading member of the
Scotch Free Kirk. ‘It is altogether,’ Canon Ellacombe
adds, ‘a delightful book, full of quaint sentences, shrewd
good-sense, and quiet humour ; and the cultural directions
are admirable.’ This praise I entirely endorse. The
chapter at the end, called ‘The Minister’s Boy,’ is
especially human, in the modern sense of the word. It
is a modest, non-old-fashioned-looking little book, and is,
I expect, to be found hidden away in many an old Scotch
house.

1825-1830. ‘Cistinew: the Natural Order of Rock
Rose,’ by Robert Sweet. This, once more, is a book
entirely confined to one family, the extent of which is
such a surprise to most of us. Who would have expected
that there are thirty-five Cistuses, seventy-eight Heli-
anthemums, and about a hundred Rock Roses? The
drawings are good; but the colouring, though still
by hand, compares very badly with Redouté’s lovely
Rose book. Cistuses are such charming plants, opening
their papery blooms in the sunlight; they do very well
in the light Surrey soil, but very few of them are really
hardy. Cuistus laurifolius is hardy with me, and C.

NOVEMBER 217

forentinus only dies in very severe winters. Mr.
Robinson gives a list of them, and they are such pretty
little shrubs that they are well worth any trouble. The
mixed Helianthemums (Sun Roses) are best raised from
seed, and it is very easy to keep any specially good ones
from cuttings made in the summer, when they strike
freely. I take potfuls of cuttings of the shrubby kinds
every year as well, in case of accidents. There are several
other books by Mr. Sweet, all of which must be well
worth having.

1826. ‘The Gardener’s Magazine,’ conducted by J. C.
Loudon. This publication, of which I have seventeen
volumes, was, according to his biographer, Mr. Loudon’s
own favourite, into which he put the best of his ideas
and work. It is only illustrated with small wood-cuts in
order to explain the text, but is crammed with interesting
information, well-arranged lists of plants, and descrip-
tions of country houses, the culture of fruit and flowers,
green-houses, and stoves. I repeat, the especial use of
these older books is to help us to the knowledge and
cultivation of non-hardy exotics—a subject which the
great authority of the day, Mr. Robinson, does not touch
upon. They, however, require to be read with under-
standing, as in Mr. Loudon’s day gardeners were much
more afraid than they are now of treating plants as
hardy—the risk of losing them being then too great,
whereas now it is only considered as being good for
trade. In nearly all private gardens of the present day
it is almost forgotten that plants can be easily repro-
duced by layers, cuttings, and seeds. Modern gardening
shares in the common fault of our generation, which is so
prone to waste and to buy, rather than to produce.

Mr. Loudon seems to have been an upright, hard-
working and educated man, who was rather forced by
ill-health into the life which he took up. There is an

216 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

contain was constantly superseded by newer books;
faith in herbalism died out; and the beautiful herbaceous
plants were swept away from our gardens. I suppose
I did not look out for these books, knowing nothing of
them; but I never saw one of them till I began to be
interested in them and to collect them five or six years
ago.

1825. ‘The Manse Garden,’ which has long been
out of print, I have. Canon Hllacombe praises it most
warmly and justly at the end of his ‘Gloucestershire
Garden,’ published last year. It has no name and no
date, but he says it was written by the Rev. N. Patter-
son, at that time—nearly seventy years ago—Minister of
Galashiels and afterwards a leading member of the
Scotch Free Kirk. ‘It is altogether,’ Canon Ellacombe
adds, ‘a delightful book, full of quaint sentences, shrewd
good-sense, and quiet humour ; and the cultural directions
are admirable.’ This praise I entirely endorse. The
chapter at the end, called ‘The Minister’s Boy,’ is
especially human, in the modern sense of the word. It
is a modest, non-old-fashioned-looking little book, and is,
I expect, to be found hidden away in many an old Scotch
house.

1825-1830. ‘Cistinew: the Natural Order of Rock
Rose,’ by Robert Sweet. This, once more, is a book
entirely confined to one family, the extent of which is
such a surprise to most of us. Who would have expected
that there are thirty-five Cistuses, seventy-eight Heli-
anthemums, and about a hundred Rock Roses? The
drawings are good; but the colouring, though still
by hand, compares very badly with Redouté’s lovely
Rose book. Cistuses are such charming plants, opening
their papery blooms in the sunlight; they do very well
in the light Surrey soil, but very few of them are really
hardy. Cistus lawrifolius is hardy with me, and C.

NOVEMBER 217

Horentuws only dies in very severe winters. Mr.
Robinson gives a list of them, and they are such pretty
little shrubs that they are well worth any trouble. The
mixed Helianthemums (Sun Roses) are best raised from
seed, and it is very easy to keep any specially good ones
from cuttings made in the summer, when they strike
freely. I take potfuls of cuttings of the shrubby kinds
every year as well, in case of accidents. There are several
other books by Mr. Sweet, all of which must be well
worth having.

1826. ‘The Gardener’s Magazine,’ conducted by J. C.
Loudon. This publication, of which I have seventeen
volumes, was, according to his biographer, Mr. Loudon’s
own favourite, into which he put the best of his ideas
and work. It is only illustrated with small wood-cuts in
order to explain the text, but is crammed with interesting
information, well-arranged lists of plants, and descrip-
tions of country houses, the culture of fruit and flowers,
green-houses, and stoves. I repeat, the especial use of
these older books is to help us to the knowledge and
cultivation of non-hardy exotics—a subject which the
great authority of the day, Mr. Robinson, does not touch
upon. They, however, require to be read with under-
standing, as in Mr. Loudon’s day gardeners were much
more afraid than they are now of treating plants as
hardy—the risk of losing them being then too great,
whereas now it is only considered as being good for
trade. In nearly all private gardens of the present day
it is almost forgotten that plants can be easily repro-
duced by layers, cuttings, and seeds. Modern gardening
shares in the common fault of our generation, which is so
prone to waste and to buy, rather than to produce.

Mr. Loudon seems to have been an upright, hard-
working and educated man, who was rather forced by
ill-health into the life which he took up. There is an

218 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

interesting portrait and biography of him in a little book
of his, published after his death, called ‘ Self-Instruction for
Young Gardeners.’ As is frequently the case with men
whose whole mind is taken up with some absorbing
intellectual occupation, he neglected his own money
affairs, and at the time of his last illness he had to
make an appeal to his many friends and admirers for
funds to enable him to publish his great work, which
has not yet been superseded, though it calls for re-editing,
ihe ‘Arboretum Botanicum,’ of which more hereafter.
Mr. Loudon died on December 14, 1843, before he heard
of the kind way in which his friends had come forward
und responded to the appeal. His wife states that he
died on the anniversary of the death of Washington, thus
linking us on by an allusion to older times, which seem
to us so very long ago.

The story of Mrs. Loudon’s marriage is rather interest-
ing. As a girl (1825) she wrote what she herself describes
as ‘a strange, weird novel,’ called ‘The Mummy’
perhaps the first of the prophetic stories that have been
so common in my time, the scene being Inid in the twenty-
second century. Mr. Loudon was struck by a review of
this book, and read it, It made so deep an impression
on him that two or three years afterwards he expressed
to a friend his great wish to know the author, whom he
believed to be a» man. An introduction was brought
about, which in a short time resulted in their marriage.
They lived in a charming house ab Bayswater, which was
then quite in the country, and ‘The Gardener's Magazine’
alone brought him in 750/. a year. Soon after their
marriage they saw at Chester, in 1831, the first number
of Paxton's ‘ Horticultural Register,’ the earliest rival to
‘The Gardener's Magazine,’ which gradually declined
from that time, and was given up immediately after Mr.
Loudon’s death. The impetus given by Mr. Loudon's

NOVEMBER 219

books and periodicals to landscape gardening and green-
house cultivation, for pleasure and beauty alone, and for
the ornamentation of the houses of the wealthy, must have
been immense. But from that time the books assumed
the deteriorated character from which they are only now
beginning to emerge. Cheapness became a desirable
object—necessary for the propagation of the instrue-
tion, This change greatly enhances the interest and
value of the older books. The illustrations only served
to elucidate the text, and in the case of coloured plates
several plants were often crowded into one page for the
sake of cheapness in reproduction. The gardener was
no longer a botanist and an artist, but employed inferior
draughtsmen to illustrate his instructions,

The original debt on the ‘Arboretum,’ published just
after Mr. Loudon’s death, was 10,000/., which seems a
very large sum, considering how poor the illustrations
are. It is a book of immense study, great interest, and
valuable instruction. The work is in eight volumes—four
letterpress and four illustrations.

1842. ‘ Ladies’ Magazine of Gurdening,’ by Mrs,
Loudon, published just before Mr. Loudon's death, has
some rather good illustrations of flowers, some certainly
not commonly grown now, What she calls the Golden-
haired Anemone is quite unknown to me. The illustra.
tions for gardens and rockwork are elaborately descriptive
of all which should be avoided ; but in every book of the
period there is much for the student to learn. Wailing
income induced Mrs. Loudon, no doubt helped by her
early efforts in literature, to publish books on gardening
for the use of amateurs. When she and her little
daughter were left very badly off, her efforts assumed a
more ambitious line,

The first edition of ‘The Lady’s Companion,’ which I
have, was published by William Smith in 1841, It is a

220 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

delightful little book, alphabetically arranged, with a few
useful illustrations, light to hold, and beautifully printed.
It always mentions the country from which the plant or
flower comes, and it often suggests, most usefully, the
soil or locality where the plants do best in England.
This is a point too often omitted in modern gardening
papers. The book was afterwards enlarged. It went
through several editions, and had many imitators. Mrs.
Loudon’s earlier books are often to be picked up, very
cheap, at secondhand shops, and I strongly recommend
all ladies interested in gardening to buy them whenever
they can lay their hands on them, either for themselves
or to give away. It is not that they are really better for
the advanced student than the modern books, but that they
are more simple. They begin more from the beginning,
they teach more what amateurs require, and they are not
complicated with the immense variety which in modern
books and catalogues drives unfortunate young gardeners
to despair. A good deal of this applies as well to the many
imitators and humble pupils of the Loudons’ school who
published between 1840 and 1850. One book I have is
called ‘ Every Lady her own Flower Gardener,’ by Louisa
Johnson (seventh edition !), published by W. 8. Orr, 1845.
Any lady with a small villa garden would find most useful
instruction in this little manual. The gardening matter
in all the books of this time is excellent ; where they fail,
like the Loudons themselves, is that they are permeated
with that early Victorian taste now thought so execrable
—baskets and vases, summer-houses and seats, are all
tortured into frightful ‘rustic’ shapes. The planting and
laying-out of grounds are equally bad; they constantly
recommend both kinds of Laurels, which time has taught
us are the most destructive of plants, killing all other
shrubs in their neighbourhood with their insolent and
devouring roots.

NOVEMBER 221

Those who have larger gardens would do well to try
and get Mrs. Loudon’s six quarto volumes, illustrated
with coloured pictures. Though artistically bad as
flower-paintings, and inferior to those published now in
the weekly gardening papers, they resemble the flowers
enough to be recognisable. They most usefully illus-
trate the text for the ignorant amateur, who learns far
more quickly when pictures and letterpress are com-
bined than by any written instruction alone, however
good.

Mrs. Loudon’s quarto volumes are now rather
difficult to get complete. There are two volumes on
perennials, one on annuals, one on bulbs; this one is
perhaps the most valuable of the lot, as it gives many of
the best-known bulbs as they arrived from the Cape,
before they were so over-cultivated and hybridised by the
modern nurseryman. Perhaps the volume on greenhouse
plants is the least interesting, as so many things are re-
commended for cultivation under glass which have since
been proved to be hardy, or nearly so, and grow very
well out of doors—at any rate, through the summer
months. The volume on English wild flowers, which
completes the set, is a little superficial, but helpful. It
has rather good pictures of many of our native plants,
some of which are now very rare. The best of these
wild flowers can be cultivated from seed, even in small
gardens, giving us most beautiful effects with very
little trouble and expense.

1828. ‘Mémoires du Musée d'Histoire naturelle.’

1834. ‘Mémoires sur quelques Espéces de Cactées.’

These are portions of two books with most beautiful
and curious illustrations of Cactuses, the only examples
of old botanical drawings of Cactuses I have been able up
to now to procure. They are not coloured, but delicate
and precise in drawing to a high degree.

222 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

1829. ‘A History of English Gardening—Chronological,
Biographical, Literary, and Critical—Tracing the Progress
of the Art in this Country from the Invasion of the
Romans to the Present Time,’ by George W. Johnson.
This little book is so comprehensive in subject that it
is rather dry reading, though Mr. Johnson’s introductory
chapter abounds in interesting information about the
gardens and vegetable cultivation of the ancients. Cato’s
description of the cultivation of Asparagus is very much
the same as what is now recommended. Gardening, at
no time in the world’s history, seems in any way to have
been the especial property of the good and simple, in
whose hands alone ‘it is the purest of human pleasures.’
To sit about gardens in summer sunshine, to listen to the
birds, and to enjoy the scent of the flowers cultivated by
others may be very enjoyable, but in no sense does it
deserve to be called ‘ the purest of human pleasures.’ No
one who does not actually work in his own garden can
ever really realise the pleasure of having one, and the
enjoyment of a garden entirely worked by others is merely
a form of idleness and luxury. The title does not
accurately describe the book, as the gardens of the
ancients are confined to the introduction, and the history
of English gardening begins only from the accession of
Edward III. The main part of itis a detailed account
of all the books that have been written on the art of
gardening. Mr. Johnson most critically describes the
letterpress of gardening books, but very little notice
indeed is taken of any illustrating, and when he reaches
Curtis’s beautiful ‘ Flora Londinensis’ he gives it no more
praise than to any little short gardening essay that
may have appeared at the time. Anyone going to the
Museum Library with this comprehensive catalogue
would have but a slight idea of what are the best books
to ask for. ‘Till the appearance of Miss Ambherst’s

NOVEMBER 223

book in 1895, I believe this was the only existing book of
reference on the history of English gardening.

1830. ‘On the Portraits of English Authors on Gar-
dening, with Biographical Notices,’ by S. Felton. A
curious and really valuable book of reference. Mr.
Felton, in his preface, pays high tribute to the ‘ History
of English Gardening,’ just described, and says: ‘ Mr.
Johnson’s work is the result of original thought and of
an ardent and extended scientific research. Mine is a
compilation ‘‘made with a pair of scissors,” to copy the
words of Mr. Mathias, which he applies to a certain
edition of Pope. I content myself, however, with the
reflection of Mr. Walpole, that “they who cannot perform
great things themselves may yet have a satisfaction in
doing justice to those who can.”’ This reminds me of the
flippant newspaper critic who called Sir George Cornewall
Lewis’s ‘ Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion’ ‘a
book to prove that, if you did not know a thing, you
should ask some one who did.’ There is a delightful
wisdom in this remark.

1830 (about). ‘The Florist’s Journal and Gardening
Record.’ I have two volumes of this publication. The
plates are well drawn and coloured, and are more delicate
than those in Mrs. Loudon’s books. One volume con-
tains a fascinating picture of that rather rare flower,
which I have failed as yet to bloom, called Zauschneria
californica. The two volumes are good specimens of
the books of the period.

1834. ‘The Magazine of Botany,’ by Joseph Paxton.
In this year the intelligent gardener at Chatsworth started
his ‘Magazine of Botany,’ which was finished in 1849.
I have the complete set of sixteen volumes. The first
volume contains a somewhat fulsome and yet touchingly
hearty dedication to his master, the Duke of Devonshire.
Each of the succeeding volumes are dedicated to more or

224 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

less exalted members of the peerage—some men, some
women. The ‘Magazine’ to this day is interesting,
useful, and full of instruction as regards the cultivation
of desirable and uncommon greenhouse and stove plants.
The title-page is quite simple. Evidently the fashion for
adornment, allegorical or otherwise, hitherto so much in
use, seems to have entirely died away, and plainness
rules the day. The page has nothing on it but the title
and the famous Bacon quotation, which can never be too
often repeated: ‘God Almighty first planted a garden,
and indeed it is the purest of human pleasures: it is the
ereatest refreshment to the spirit of man, without which
buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks; and a
man shall ever see that, when ages grow to civility and
elegance, men come to build stately sooner than to garden
finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection.’

Bacon is delightfully solemn, but one cannot help
remembering Adam found it so very dull till Eve came
that he even sacrificed a rib for the sake of a com-
panion.

There is a sad falling-off in the plates, both wood-cuts
and coloured ones, though they are executed by different
people, and some are much better than others. Paxton
must have studied hard, as he constantly refers to the
older books. What is of chief interest about him is that
he was the greatest unconscious instrument in the move-
ment he helped to develop, which altered the gardening
of the whole of England, and consequently of the world.
He used the old patterns of Italy and France for designs
of beds, filling them, as had never been done before, with
cuttings of tender exotics, which were kept under glass
during the whole winter. Endless sums of money were at
his disposal, and everything was done which could facilitate
his efforts to make the terraces of Chatsworth a blaze
of colour during the months of August and September,

NOVEMBER 225

the months when his master came from town. From
his point of view this was a most praiseworthy object,
and no doubt gave great satisfaction. It was copied, for
the same reasons, by most of the great houses in England.
But what was really unfortunate, and can only recall the
old fable of the ox and the frog, was the imitation of this
system in all the gardens of England, down to the half-
acre surrounding a vicarage, or the plot of ground in
front of a suburban residence. The ox, as we know, was
big by nature; and when the frog imitated him, it was
flattering to the ox, but the frog came to grief. So I
think to this day, if bedding-out is ever tolerable, it is on
the broad terraces facing large stone houses, with which
we have nothing to do here. Where it becomes in-
tolerable, and perhaps it is hard to blame Paxton for this,
is in the miniature Chatsworths, with their little lawns
and their little beds, their Pelargoniums—often only
coloured leaves, like the Mrs. Pollock—their dwarf Calceo-
larias, their purple Verbenas, and their blue Lobelias ;
where the lady is not allowed to pick, and where the
gardener, if he is masterful and gets his own way, turns
the old herbaceous border in front of the house into that
terrible abomination called ‘carpet-bedding.’ Paxton
was a very remarkable man in his way. When taken up
by the Queen and the Prince Consort, he built in 1851
that wonderful and ever-to-be-remembered glass case,
in Hyde Park, the first general International Exhibition,
which enclosed two large elms. Poor trees! how they
hated it! Their drooping autumnal appearance is my
strongest childish remembrance of that Exhibition.
Paxton was knighted by the Queen, and partly built the
Crystal Palace at Sydenham with the remains of the
Hyde Park Exhibition.

1835. Culpepper’s ‘Complete Herbal.’ A republica-
tion of his original ‘ Epistle to the Reader’ is dated from

Q

228 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

name of the “ Hvergreens,” to commemorate the birth
of his daughter, afterwards Caroline, Duchess of Marl-
borough; it was something more than one hundred
acres, and was, before that time, a rabbit-warren, pro-
ducing nothing but a few blades of grass, with the heath
or ling indigenous to the soil, and without a single tree
upon it.

‘In the course of a few years the Duke perceived
that the plantation required thinning, in order to admit a
free circulation of air, and give health and vigour to the
young trees. He accordingly gave instructions to his
gardener, and directed him as to the mode and extent of
the thinning required. The gardener paused, and hesi-
tated, and at length said, ‘‘ Your Grace must pardon me
if I humbly remonstrate against your orders, but I
cannot possibly do what you desire; it would at once
destroy the young plantation, and, moreover, it would be
seriously injurious to my reputation as a planter.”

‘My grandfather, who was of an impetuous and
decided character, but always just, instantly replied, ‘“‘ Do
as I tell you, and I will take care of your reputation.”

‘The plantation, which ran for nearly a mile along
the road leading from the market town of Woburn to
that of Ampthill, was, consequently, thinned according
to the instructions of the Duke of Bedford, who caused a
board to be fixed in the plantation, facing the road, on
which was inscribed, ‘‘ This plantation has been thinned
by John, Duke of Bedford, contrary to the advice and
opinion of his gardener.” ’

1843. ‘Flora Odorata: a Characteristic Arrangement
of the Sweet-scented Flowers and Shrubs cultivated in
the Gardens of Great Britain,’ by Frederick T. Mott. A
useful, suggestive, little book, and the only one on the
subject that was ever printed, I believe, till the appearance
of a book in 1895, ‘Sweet-scented Flowers and Fragrant

NOVEMBER 229

Leaves, by Donald McDonald. This last often gives the
name of one scented variety in a perfectly scentless
family, such as the Camellia. C. drupifera has scented
flowers. I observe that the very faintest odour justifies
the inclusion of some plants in both these books.

1846. ‘Flowers and their Associations,’ and ‘The
Field, Garden, and Woodland,’ by Anne Pratt. I have
none of Anne Pratt’s books except this curious little one,
given me off a Christmas-tree, by aseriousold uncle, because
I was fond of flowers, when I was a child. It is roughly
illustrated, and contains much desultory information.

1848. ‘The Rose Garden,’ by William Paul. This is
a most interesting publication as regards plant growth,
increased variety, and the utter collapse and deteriora-
tion of the art of illustrating. Viewed by the light of
Redouté’s Rose book, it is like turning from a Greek
goddess to the stoutest of matrons. The poor Rose !—
it has swelled and amplified under cultivation to a
despairing degree; but the execution of the plates is
answerable for much, no doubt. We have now the
figure of the Bourbon Rose, called ‘Souvenir de la
Malmaison.’ Roses have increased apace in the quarter
of a century since Redouté painted them, but many of
the Roses in this book are now called old-fashioned.
The plans and instructions for Rose gardens are not what
are now admired, and, one would say are singularly
unsuited to the spreading wild growth of healthy Roses.

1854. ‘A History of British Ferns,’ by Hdward
Newman. Enthusiastic gardeners in the ’Fifties gave
a great deal of time and attention to Ferns. Now,
people wisely do not attempt them where they will not
grow. My other Fern book, published in 1868, is ‘ Select
Ferns and Lycopods, British and Exotic,’ by B. 8.

“Williams. A useful book, as Fern-growing in stoves and
greenhouses will always be well worth while.

230 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

(No date, but I imagine in the ’Fifties.) ‘ Profitable
Gardening: a Practical Guide,’ by Shirley Hibberd. A
nice old book, full of clear instruction and practical
hints. Books of this description are often to be picked
up on old bookstalls, and are very helpful, as being the
A BC to more advanced modern books.

1855. ‘ Flora of the Colosseum of Rome,’ by Richard
Deakin, M.D., with a print of the ruins of the Colosseum
before the days of photography. I bought this book, I
must confess, out of pure sentiment, as it is too strictly
botanical to suit my ignorance. I spent a winter in Rome
when I was a little girl, and the vegetation which grew
all over the Colosseum, both plants and flowers, was
deeply impressed on my mind. I never saw Rome again
till about twelve years ago, when the scraped and tidy
appearance of the Roman ruins, though no doubt necessary
for their preservation for posterity, struck a cruel blow at
my youthful recollections. This curious little book gives
the botanical description of 420 plants growing spon-
taneously on the ruins of the Colosseum at Rome. The
record of this absolutely vanished vegetation has, I
think, a touch of poetry of its own which can better be
felt than expressed. The book has some little architec-
tural illustrations of no great merit.

1855. ‘ Beautiful-Leaved Plants,’ by EH. J. Stone.
This is a book rather interesting to the collector, and
illustrative of a peculiarly bad period. Its quotations
and general appearance are rather those of a ‘ Lady
Blessington Annual’ than of a serious gardening book,
but I should think it was a standard work on hothouse
foliage plants. It has one great merit: the illustrations
are in very bright colours, and the plant in full growth
is printed in black and white on the opposite page;
this is a first-rate way of illustrating a book of the kind.
The letterpress gives a detailed botanical story of the

NOVEMBER 231

plant illustrated, and the method of its cultivation. A
useful book, I should imagine, for head-gardeners whose
employers are fond of beautiful-leaved plants.

1869. ‘The Parks, Promenades, and Gardens of
Paris,’ by W. Robinson. This is the earliest of many most
interesting books that I possess by Mr. Robinson; a
book full of information, branching into many directions.
The third, and I believe last, edition, with the illustrations
much improved, was published in 1883.

Next comes, in 1871, his ‘ Sub-tropical Garden, or
Beauty of Form in the Flower Garden.’ This second title
refers to that which, to my mind, is the great value and
interest of the book, and to be attained almost entirely as
well by hardy plants as by sub-tropical ones. In 1871,
however, the idea was new, and is even now but most
indifferently carried out or understood in nine out of ten
gardens that one sees, in spite of all Mr. Robinson’s
invaluable teaching both in this and many other of his
books.

‘Alpine Flowers for English Gardens.’ Mine is the
third edition. The illustrations are popular, and inferior
to those in most of Mr. Robinson’s books. How much
joy do the Alps recall to thousands of people! Even for
those who do not enjoy mountain scenery, there are
always the lakes and the flora.

Avec leurs grands sommets, leurs glaces éternelles
Par un soleil d’été que les Alpes sont belles !

Some of Mr. Ruskin’s happiest lines, I think, are in
the ‘ Mont Blane revisited’ :

O mount beloved, my eyes again
Behold the twilight’s sanguine stain
Along thy peaks expire ;
O mount beloved, thy frontier waste
I seek with a religious haste
And reverent desire.

230 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

(No date, but I imagine in the ’Fifties.) ‘ Profitable
Gardening: a Practical Guide,’ by Shirley Hibberd. A
nice old book, full of clear instruction and practical
hints. Books of this description are often to be picked
up on old bookstalls, and are very helpful, as being the
A BC to more advanced modern books.

1855. ‘ Flora of the Colosseum of Rome,’ by Richard
Deakin, M.D., with a print of the ruins of the Colosseum
before the days of photography. I bought this book, I
must confess, out of pure sentiment, as it is too strictly
botanical to suit my ignorance. I spent a winter in Rome
when I was a little girl, and the vegetation which grew
all over the Colosseum, both plants and flowers, was
deeply impressed on my mind. I never saw Rome again
till about twelve years ago, when the scraped and tidy
appearance of the Roman ruins, though no doubt necessary
for their preservation for posterity, struck a cruel blow at
my youthful recollections. This curious little book gives
the botanical description of 420 plants growing spon-
taneously on the ruins of the Colosseum at Rome. The
record of this absolutely vanished vegetation has, I
think, a touch of poetry of its own which can better be
felt than expressed. The book has some little architec-
tural illustrations of no great merit.

1855. ‘ Beautiful-Leaved Plants, by EH. J. Stone.
This is a book rather interesting to the collector, and
illustrative of a peculiarly bad period. Its quotations
and general appearance are rather those of a ‘ Lady
Blessington Annual’ than of a serious gardening book,
but I should think it was a standard work on hothouse
foliage plants. It has one great merit: the illustrations
are in very bright colours, and the plant in full growth
is printed in black and white on the opposite page ;
this is a first-rate way of illustrating a book of the kind.
The letterpress gives a detailed botanical story of the

NOVEMBER 231

plant illustrated, and the method of its cultivation. A
useful book, I should imagine, for head-gardeners whose
employers are fond of beautiful-leaved plants.

1869. ‘The Parks, Promenades, and Gardens of
Paris, by W. Robinson. This is the earliest of many most
interesting books that I possess by Mr. Robinson; a
book full of information, branching into many directions.
The third, and I believe last, edition, with the illustrations
much improved, was published in 1883.

Next comes, in 1871, his ‘ Sub-tropical Garden, or
Beauty of Form in the Flower Garden.’ This second title
refers to that which, to my mind, is the great value and
interest of the book, and to be attained almost entirely as
well by hardy plants as by sub-tropical ones. In 1871,
however, the idea was new, and is even now but most
indifferently carried out or understood in nine out of ten
gardens that one sees, in spite of all Mr. Robinson’s
invaluable teaching both in this and many other of his
books.

‘Alpine Flowers for English Gardens.’ Mine is the
third edition. The illustrations are popular, and inferior
to those in most of Mr. Robinson’s books. How much
joy do the Alps recall to thousands of people! Even for
those who do not enjoy mountain scenery, there are
always the lakes and the flora.

Avec leurs grands sommets, leurs glaces éternelles
Par un soleil d’été que les Alpes sont belles !

Some of Mr. Ruskin’s happiest lines, I think, are in
the ‘ Mont Blane revisited’ :

O mount beloved, my eyes again
Behold the twilight’s sanguine stain
Along thy peaks expire ;
O mount beloved, thy frontier waste
I seek with a religious haste
And reverent desire.

Teal ea
¢) yew)
Hh

232 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

And who can ever think of Switzerland apart from
Matthew Arnold’s two wonderful Obermann poems? Do
not some spirits still exist who slip ‘their chain’ with
Matthew Arnold ?

And to thy mountain chalet come,
And lie beside its door,

And hear the wild bees’ Alpine hum,
And thy sad, tranquil lore.

Again I feel the words inspire
Their mournful calm—serene,

Yet tinged with infinite desire
For all that might have been.

De Senancour! how these poems ‘To Obermann’ have
carried your melancholy eloquence from the early years
of the century to its very end!

The first edition of the ‘Wild Garden’ was published
in 1881, and of all modern illustrated flower-books it is
the only one I know that makes me feel really enthu-
siastic. The drawings in it, by Mr. Alfred Parsons, are
exquisite and quite original. At the time of its publica-
tion the method was new, and, to my mind, it has not
yet been surpassed. I have also the fourth edition, which
came out in 1894, with much new matter and several new
illustrations, especially landscapes ; but I prefer the first
edition—perhaps because we get fond of the particular
edition that originally gave pleasure.

I am afraid that the hopeful instructions on ‘wild
gardening’ so cheerfully laid down by Mr. Robinson
must be taken with a great many grains of salt when it
comes to putting them into practice, especially in dry
soils. With care, labour, knowledge, and space, exquisite
gardens may be laid out, suitable to the various soils of
England ; but, in my experience, even the best planting
goes off without renewal of the soil. This shows itself
with the happy possessors of these so-called ‘wild gardens’

NOVEMBER 233

by the constant desire to extend them into pastures new.
Mr. Robinson’s description of a garden at Weybridge
ought to open the eyes of everybody as to what can be
done in light soils. All I wish to point out is that
merely buying the plants and sticking them in does not
make a wild garden. No one can look at Mr. Parsons’
beautiful drawings of the Evening Primrose and the
Giant Cow Parsley without longing to grow such things.
But the first essentials are space and isolation; they are
worth nothing if crowded up.

1875. ‘The Vegetable Garden,’ by M. M. Vilmorin-
Andrieux. English edition published under the direction
of W. Robinson. This is one of the books mentioned in
January as indispensable to anyone who wishes to be
up-to-date or to grow special vegetables in the kitchen
garden. The illustrations are from the French edition,
and, though not artistic, are admirably drawn, and give
one quickly an intimate knowledge of the shape and
growth of vegetables, whether they be roots or plants.

The first edition of the now far-famed ‘ English Flower
Garden’ came out in 1883, and the one published this
year (1896) is the sixth edition. It has been immensely
added to, and the present illustrations are among the
most beautiful modern wood-cuts I know. Itis said that
books are now written to be read and understood by the
village idiot. If this be so, I must own that the first and
second editions, with thei quantity of small, gardener’s
catalogue illustrations of the plants and flowers, are more
helpful to the ignorant amateur than is this beautiful
illustrating of, let us say, a branch of Hawthorn or a full-
blown Tea-rose. This seems a cruel criticism of a beautiful
book; and it should never be forgotten that the fault lies
with the ignorant amateur, not with the new edition.

‘God’s Acre Beautiful, or The Cemeteries of the
Future’ is a strong plea for cremation. My edition is

236 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

be the best of Governments in which an injury done to
the meanest subject is an insult to the whole community.

‘This is pretty much the law of a garden.

‘Nothing is more objectionable than the manner in
which the common plants are often treated to make way
for the grandees. Bulbs taken up before they are ready,
and dwarfed for next season in consequence; small trees
or shrubs transplanted carelessly, and thrust in wher-
ever they will do no harm, because a little too good to
throw away, and not quite good enough to deserve just
treatment; and many other plants neglected, over-
shadowed, or in some way stinted of their due, as not
being worth much trouble. At times, even worse than
this, we see murderous digging and slashing amongst
plants in their period of growth. This is not a healthy
process for the mind. Whatever is unfairly treated is
better altogether away, since we can view it with no hearty
relish. And this injustice to the least is felt inevitably in
a measure by all, for it affects the spirit of the place.
Half the charm of the old-fashioned garden lies in that
look of happy rest among the plants, each of which seems
to say: ‘All plant life is sacred when admitted, my own
repose has never been disturbed, and I am confident it
never will be.” You feel this to be a sort of heaven
of plant life, preserved by some hidden charm from the
intrusion of noxious weeds. The modern garden, on the
contrary, is too apt to assume a look of stir and change ;
here to-day, gone to-morrow. The very tidiness of the
beds and the neat propriety of the plants contribute to
this impression. We feel the omnipresence of a severity
which cannot tolerate straggling. None have been ad-
mitted but polished gentlemen, who will never break the
rules; and we feel that the most cherished offender would
be instantly punished.

‘IT have been referring here to the herbaceous plants

NOVEMBER 237

and evergreens of the ordinary beds—Thujas, Junipers,
Rhododendrons, &c.—rather than to the larger trees and
shrubs. To run down the glorious Rhododendrons in
themselves would be preposterous ; but they always have,
however large they may grow, an air of gentlemanly
restraint—a drawing-room manner, asit were—which must
produce the effect we have described wherever they are
very numerous. But the old garden impresses us always
by that loving tenderness for the plants. ‘That wall-
flower ought not to have come up in the Box edging—but
never mind, we must manage to get on without hurting
the wallflower ;”’ and it is this spirit of compromise—this
happy, genial, kindly character, as contrasted with the
sterner and less loving spirit, which you feel is ready to
descend upon any transgressor in a moment, that makes
the difference of which we speak.’

Mr. Watson is very severe in his condemnation of
double flowers, and in a way which, I think, indicates the
same nature that could not admire Rubens or the Venetian
painters. Surely many people with a sensuous tempera-
ment are no more to be blamed therefor than are people
who blush to be reprimanded by those who do not. In
their power of giving pleasure the strong-scented double
garden flowers are superior to the beautiful single ones,
and the Neapolitan Violet, the warm, exquisitely scented
Tuberose, the tender but full-odoured garden Rose, and
the Carnation, give great delight in a harmless way to
people of certain temperaments. Why should this be con-
demned, when that which pleases the eye in the beautiful
forms of the single flower is praised? Mr. Watson says,
‘Aboveall, scorn nothing’ ; yet he himself utterly condemns
the cultivator who prefers the double sweet-scented flowers.
It is the old story ; as Samuel Butler puts it, the damning
of the sins we are not inclined to. We all do it more or less.
To me some few flowers seem vulgar, partly from associa-

236 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

be the best of Governments in which an injury done to
the meanest subject is an insult to the whole community.

‘This is pretty much the law of a garden.

‘Nothing is more objectionable than the manner in
which the common plants are often treated to make way
for the grandees. Bulbs taken up before they are ready,
and dwarfed for next season in consequence; small trees
or shrubs transplanted carelessly, and thrust in wher-
ever they will do no harm, because a little too good to
throw away, and not quite good enough to deserve just
treatment; and many other plants neglected, over-
shadowed, or in some way stinted of their due, as not
being worth much trouble. At times, even worse than
this, we see murderous digging and slashing amongst
plants in their period of growth. This is not a healthy
process for the mind. Whatever is unfairly treated is
better altogether away, since we can view it with no hearty
relish. And this mjustice to the least is felt inevitably in
a measure by all, for it affects the spirit of the place.
Half the charm of the old-fashioned garden lies in that
look of happy rest among the plants, each of which seems
to say: ‘All plant life is sacred when admitted, my own
repose has never been disturbed, and I am confident it
never will be.” You feel this to be a sort of heaven
of plant life, preserved by some hidden charm from the
intrusion of noxious weeds. The modern garden, on the
contrary, is too apt to assume a look of stir and change ;
here to-day, gone to-morrow. The very tidiness of the
beds and the neat propriety of the plants contribute to
this impression. We feel the omnipresence of a severity
which cannot tolerate straggling. None have been ad-
mitted but polished gentlemen, who will never break the
rules; and we feel that the most cherished offender would
be instantly punished.

‘IT have been referring here to the herbaceous plants

NOVEMBER 237

and evergreens of the ordinary beds—Thujas, Junipers,
Rhododendrons, &c.—rather than to the larger trees and
shrubs. To run down the glorious Rhododendrons in
themselves would be preposterous ; but they always have,
however large they may grow, an air of gentlemanly
restraint—a drawing-room manner, asit were—which must
produce the effect we have described wherever they are
very numerous. But the old garden impresses us always
by that loving tenderness for the plants. ‘That wall-
flower ought not to have come up in the Box edging—but
never mind, we must manage to get on without hurting
the wallflower ;” and it is this spirit of compromise—this
happy, genial, kindly character, as contrasted with the
sterner and less loving spirit, which you feel is ready to
descend upon any transgressor in a moment, that makes
the difference of which we speak.’

Mr. Watson is very severe in his condemnation of
double flowers, and in a way which, I think, indicates the
same nature that could not admire Rubens or the Venetian
painters. Surely many people with a sensuous tempera-
ment are no more to be blamed therefor than are people
who blush to be reprimanded by those who do not. In
their power of giving pleasure the strong-scented double
garden flowers are superior to the beautiful single ones,
and the Neapolitan Violet, the warm, exquisitely scented
Tuberose, the tender but full-odoured garden Rose, and
the Carnation, give great delight in a harmless way to
people of certain temperaments. Why should this be con-
demned, when that which pleases the eye in the beautiful
forms of the single flower is praised? Mr. Watson says,
‘Above all, scorn nothing’; yet he himself utterly condemns
the cultivator who prefers the double sweet-scented flowers.
It is the old story ; as Samuel Butler puts it, the damning
of the sins we are not inclined to. Weall do it more or less.
To me some few flowers seem vulgar, partly from associa-

238 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

tion and partly from the unsympathetic harshness of their
tint. But surely in gardening, as in all else in life, the
broadest view is best, and the wisest attempt is to please
as many as we can. The taste of the ignorant and the
critical taste of the cultivated never can be the same on
any subject, but both are better than indifference and no
taste at all. I know one man who dislikes any flowers,
and only has stunted Portugal Laurels growing in green
square boxes on his lawn. I know another who will not
plant anything that does not flower or fruit in the autumn
months, because that is the only time he intends to live
at his country place. All tastes are respectable, though
we may each of us find it difficult to admire the taste of
the other.

1872. ‘My Garden: Its Plan and Culture,’ by Alfred
Smee. Second edition, revised and corrected. This book
is one I can really reeommend to beginners. It is modern
in illustration, and yet it retains some of the character-
istics of the older books. It really teaches you what to
do, and gives a very fair idea of all that a good-sized
garden requires; it names and illustrates hardly any
plants not worth growing; it includes kitchen garden,
flower garden, Alpine garden, greenhouse, stove, and
water plants; and it winds up with garden insects, animals,
and birds. The illustrations are much above the average.
Those who want to buy one single book likely to help
them, especially at first, could not do better than get this
one, which is often to be seen mentioned in catalogues
of second-hand books.

1874. ‘Alpine Plants,’ edited by David Wooster. This
work, which is in two volumes, contains a great many
colour-printed illustrations of Alpine plants—not, however,
as they grow in the fissures of their mountain slopes, but
as they may be seen in Mr. Backhouse’s most interest-
ing gardens in Yorkshire. The drawings are rather
exaggerated in size and harsh in colour, but?the book is

NOVEMBER 239

distinctly instructive as portraying, among what are called
‘Alpines,’ the most showy and the best worth cultivating
in English gardens.

1879. ‘A Year in a Lancashire Garden,’ by Henry A.
Bright. This little book is the one I alluded to in March,
and to which I consider I owe so much. It often gives
me pleasure to read it overnow. It has qualities like the
garden itself. The same flowers come up each year, the
same associations link themselves on to the returning
flowers, and the verses of the great poets are unchanged ;
so this little book will always be to me like poor Ophelia’s
Rosemary, ‘ that’s remembrance.’

The quotations throughout the book are quite un-
usually original and appropriate.

(No date.) ‘Gleanings from Old Garden Literature,’
by W. Carew Hazlitt. Of all the recent little books
referring in some way directly or indirectly to gardens,
this one, I think, gives me the most pleasure. It has
all the charm of a conversation with a clever and sym-
pathetic man on subjects that are dear to him and to
oneself. Mr. Hazlitt quotes, from Cowley’s preface to
his poem of ‘The Garden,’ the delightful wish which
comes home to so many when the strife and toil of
life are more or less over and evening is drawing
near:—‘I never had any other desire so strong and
so like covetousness as that one which I have had
always, that I might be master at last of a small house
and large garden, with very moderate conveniences
joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my
life to the culture of them and the study of Nature.’ To
anyone who has found any interest in my book-notes, I
would say, ‘ Get this little book ; you will find pleasure in it.’

1881. ‘ Notes and Thoughts on Gardens and Wood-
lands,’ by the late Frances Jane Hope. This is a most
excellent and helpful work to the true amateur gardener.
Though without the unique literary flavour of that book, it

240 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

belongs in a way to what I would call the ‘ Lancashire
Garden’ series, and is not only useful by reason of its
suggestive and instructive qualities, but is full of indi-
viduality and information. Miss Hope strikes the true
note, and one, it seems, of the real difficulties of left-alone
half-wild gardens, when she says, ‘These two winters and
one summer have spoilt our spring beds and borders, and
a thorough upturn and change of plan will be requisite.
It was impossible to use a fork or hoe in 1879 in our
soil; the result of the leave-alone system is a carpet of
Marchantia and Hypnum sericeum. To scrape these pests
off does no real good, for the earth is caked below and
impervious to air, sun, or rain. So we are longing for our
bulb treasures to be up, and to get on to our alterations, do
away with rings and surfacings, and whatever prevents
us loosening the earth between each plant. Looking at
our border, the only real advantage of what is called
bedding-out struck me forcibly, being the thorough work-
ing and justice done to the soil.’ The whole book is
simply about gardening, but of the most intelligent and
suggestive kind.

1884. ‘Hardy Perennials,’ by John Wood. An ex-
cellent, cheap, instructive little book. Mr. Wood, of
Kirkstall, Yorkshire, has a very fine collection of herb-
aceous plants for sale.

1884. ‘Days and Hours in a Garden,’ by E. V. B.
This is a garden book rather breathing the sweet luxury
and joy of a garden than one very full of instruction or
practical experience. H. V. B. herself owns one of the
most beautiful gardens I know; and the book has, I think,
that power which is one of the highest qualities of art, of
making one feel beauty. The little pen-and-ink drawings
are full of charm; and on the expanse of an inch—for
these little headings to chapters are scarcely more—one
breathes the pure air of Heaven. As she herself quotes,

Bali’ ¥

NOVEMBER 241

‘To the wise a fact is true poetry and the most beautiful
of Fables.’ In 1895 E. V. B. published a second book,
called ‘A Garden of Pleasure.’ It has the same qualities,
but is not perhaps quite as good. We are apt to think
this of second books on the same subject—perhaps we are
prejudiced in favour of our first friend.

1890. ‘The Garden’s Story, or Pleasures and Trials
of an Amateur Gardener,’ by George H. Ellwanger. I
suppose nearly all readers of garden books have seen this
charming, clever, tasteful, little contribution from the
other shore ; I do not mean the next world, but America.
In spite of the constant interchange of books between the
two countries, it required an introduction from go well-
known a gardener as Mr. Wolley Dod to make the book
known here. Let us thank Mr. Wolley Dod cordially,
and thoroughly agree that an international exchange of
information on so all-absorbing a subject as gardening is
most interesting. The climate of America, with its hot
summers and long cold winters, makes gardening a much
more serious undertaking than it is in our own damp,
equable, little island. Mr. Hllwanger gives us a most
luxurious and opulent receipt for the old favourite
mixture called, all the world over, Pot-pourri :—‘The roses
used should be just blown, of the sweetest-smelling kinds,
gathered in as dry a state as possible. After each gather-
ing, spread out the petals on a sheet of paper and leave
until free from all moisture ; then place a layer of petals
in the jar, sprinkling with coarse salt; then another layer
and salt, alternating, until the jar is full. Leave for a
few days, or until a broth is formed; then incorporate
thoroughly, and add more petals and salt, mixing daily
for a week, when fragrant gums and spices should be
added, such as benzoin, storax, cassia buds, cinnamon,
cloves, cardamom, and vanilla bean. Mix again and
leave for a few days, when add essential oil of jasmine,

R

244 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

gardens of Italy, which, even in their decay, are never
forgotten by those who once have had the joy of wander-
ing in them.

1894. ‘The Natural History of Plants,’ from the
German of Anton Kerner von Marilaun, Professor of
Botany in the University of Vienna, by F. W. Oliver
Quain, Professor of Botany in University College, London.
For the modern botanist this book is deeply interesting.
I am, alas! no botanist, and have no scientific knowledge ;
but to take up the book, and to read a page or two
anywhere, opens one’s eyes wide with wonder. It
refers principally to microscopic botany. The coloured
plates are saddening to a degree; they seem to me all
that botanical plates ought not to be, and somehow
appear to have been affected by Miss North’s system of
flower-painting. How valuable would have been her
untiring energy, if the drawings so generously given to
Kew had been either artistic, like Mr. Parsons’, or, still
better, from the scientific point of view, botanical and
delicately true, like Jacquin’s or Redouté’s, or the drawings
in Curtis’s books! In the chromo-lithographs of these
four volumes we have attempts at the impossible—large
plants in the foreground, with skies, distances, and middle-
distance all out of tone. The wood-cuts are much
better ; some are very good and delicate, especially the
representations of strongly magnified subjects. I bought
the book as bringing illustrated plant-lore down to the
latest date. The account, in the third volume, of the dis-
tribution of pollen is thrillingly interesting, and is within
the comprehension of the aforenamed ‘village idiot’;
many of our ordinary garden flowers are figured as ex-
amples. The saddest attempt at a picture is a Brobding-
nagian representation of an Alpine Rhododendron, with
pines and snow-clad mountains in the distance. I may
be wrong, but to me it seems waste of talent and time

NOVEMBER 245

and money to illustrate books in this way. These
illustrations are printed in Germany ; let us hope that the
artists were also Germans.

1895. ‘In a Gloucestershire Garden, by Henry
Ellacombe. I think most people who are personally
interested in their gardens will enjoy this book; there is
much to be learnt from it, and the second part is especially
instructive. It breathes the true spirit of a garden,
independently of the human element or of book-making.
Canon Hllacombe names many of the old Roses, now
gone out of fashion, but I rather doubt if he has ever seen
Redouté’s wonderful Rose book. He ends his book with
warning to the clergy against gardening, as being too
interesting and too absorbing an occupation for them. I
can thoroughly echo this sentiment as a warning to all
young people. It can only be perfectly indulged in by
the lonely or the old, and by those who do not mind
neglecting their other duties, and who say, bravely and
honestly, ‘I am quite selfish and quite happy.’ But
of course this is the danger of all absorbing pursuits.
I agree with many of Canon Ellacombe’s remarks; one
especially can never be too often repeated :—‘ In nothing
is the gardener’s skill more shown than in the judicious
use of the pruning-knife.’ His experience of the American
Bramble is exactly mine—as far as the fruit goes; it is
not worth growing, as the fruit is less in quantity and
inferior in quality to our own wild Brambles. But the cut
leaf is prettier, and at any rate makes a variety.

1895. ‘The Story of the Plants,’ by Grant Allen, is a
humble, little popular book; but I am sure its perusal
will bring pleasure and increased understanding to many
who read it. One of his sayings is ‘that plants are the
only things that know how to manufacture living material.
Roughly speaking, plants are the producers and animals
the consumers.’

246 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

1896. ‘The Bamboo Garden,’ by A. B. Freeman
Mitford, C.B. Mr. Mitford tells us in his preface that his
book is simply an attempt to give a descriptive list—
what the French call a catalogue raisonné—of the hardy
Bamboos in cultivation in this country. We ought to be
erateful that he has brought within the reach of every-
body all that is to be said on this most beautiful family.

1895. ‘A History of Gardening in England,’ by the
Hon. Alicia Amherst. This is by far the most interest-
ing and remarkable book that, I believe, has ever been
written on the subject, and far surpasses in every way
Mr. Johnson’s ‘ History of Gardening,’ before alluded to.
The book is full of information, drawn from patient
and most diligent research, and will be of real utility
to students of the literature and history of gardening
and to the owners of large places. It contains little
that will practically help people who live in cottages
and small villas. It alludes only very indirectly to the
beautiful illustrated flower books, especially the foreign
ones, which so far exceed our own in artistic beauty and
skill. It is rather sad that when the Society of Gardeners
wished to illustrate their plants in 1736 they had to
engage the services of Jacob van Huysum, brother of the
Dutch flower-painter ; and to this day the best periodical
coloured flower-printing, though painted by Englishmen,
is printed in Belgium (vide ‘ The Garden’). Miss Amherst’s
book is one for constant reference ; and the greater one’s
knowledge, the greater will be one’s appreciation of it. I
cannot but regret, however, that it has been printed on the
disagreeable modern shiny paper, which also makes the
book most inconveniently heavy. This paper, I am told,
facilitates the reproduction of the illustrations ; but these,
also, are very hard and ugly, and quite unworthy of the
book.

It is almost impossible to keep pace with the modern

aveRs
2 a

NOVEMBER 247

books about gardens, they are so numerous. Just to
complete my list I will mention several in my possession,
for, as the motto of one of them says, ‘It is a natural
consequence that those who cannot taste the actual
fruition of a garden should take the greater delight in
reading about one.’

‘Voyage autour de mon Jardin,’ by Alphonse Kavr, is
charming, and has been translated into English.

‘The Praise of Gardens,’ by Albert F. Sieveking, is a
collection of quotations of all that has been written about
gardens. The selection is very complete. Unfortunately
the book is out of print. ;

I need hardly mention ‘The Garden that I Love,’ by
Alfred Austin, as it has been such a favourite with the
public. It is, of course, a book written less to instruct
about gardening than to show what a beautiful and
enchanting place a garden is for conversation, especially
when the right people come together.

In the ‘ Edinburgh Review’ for July 1896, there is an
article called ‘Gardens and Garden Craft,’ with a long
heading of gardening books, which many people will find
interesting, as I did.

In the November (1896) number of ‘The Journal of
the Royal Horticultural Society’ is an excellent lecture by
Mr. F. W. Burbidge, the Curator of the Botanical Garden
in Dublin. In the ‘Journal’ the lecture is divided into
three parts—called ‘ Garden Literature,’ ‘ Reference Books
on English Gardening Literature,’ and ‘ Garden Libraries.’
It is interesting, besides other reasons, as being a some-
what new departure in the lectures delivered before the
Horticultural Society. I strongly recommend those who
care about the subject to read this lecture, as they will
get a great deal of most useful information in a very
condensed form. Mr. Burbidge strongly recommends
garden libraries, in which I entirely agree with him. No

248 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

large place should be without a room where gardening
books and weekly gardening papers are within easy
access of all the gardeners on the place, and no village
club in England could not afford to take in Mr. Robinson’s
excellent little weekly paper called ‘ Cottage Gardening,’
which I mentioned before. It costs one halfpenny, and
is full of all sorts of useful information. Surely at village
shows no better prize could be given than the back
numbers (bound) of this most useful publication. Mr.
Burbidge says: ‘In America and in Germany the library
seems to be thought as essential to good gardening and
profitable land culture as here with us the seed room or
the tool shed; and in England we are beginning to
perceive the value of technical education, and to recognise
the vital importance of the most recent scientific dis-
coveries relating to our crops and their diseases, and the
soil in which they grow. Private garden libraries, while
most desirable, really form part of a much larger
and wider question. If libraries are essential for the
garden, surely they are even more so on the farm.’ Mr.
Burbidge winds up: ‘ But to form libraries we must have
good and useful books, and I shall give a short list of
those I believe to be the best of their kind; and one of
the best ways I know of getting the best gardening books
into the best hands is to award them as prizes to the
cultivators and exhibitors of garden produce at allotment-
garden and village flower shows.’ With this I most
cordially agree. Then follows a list of thirty-eight books.

Another paper of great interest is on the importance
of British fruit-growing, from a food point of view, by Mr.
Edmund J. Baillie.

249

DECEMBER

Orchid-growing on a small scale—Miss Jekyll’s articles in the
‘Guardian ’—Winter vegetables—Laver as a vegetable—Advice
to housekeepers—Cooking sun-dried fruit.

December 5th—For anyone with a small stove I can
thoroughly advise growing some of the more easily
cultivated Orchids. For many years all Orchids seemed
to me to smell of money, and to represent great expendi-
ture; but this is not the case at all. They only want the
treatment suited to them, and the same care and atten-
tion required by other plants that are grown in heat.
Cypripediums come in most usefully at this time of
year ; they last well in water, and continue to flower at
times all through the winter. There are endless varieties
of them to be bought, and some of the least expensive
plants are often as good as the costly ones; it is only
the new varieties that are dear. Some that I have
—green, spotted with brown, and with clear white tips
—are lovely. They have looked well lately on the
dinner-table, arranged with little branches of a shrubby
Veronica, called, I believe, V. speciosum. It is a plant
well worth growing for the charming light green of its
leaves out of doors at this time of year, when fresh green
is so rare. Unlike most of the shrubby Veronicas, it
lasts well in water. It has a long white flower in July,
which is not especially pretty. We also grow very suc-
cessfully Dendrobium nobile, Oncidiwm sphacelatum, and

250 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

several other Orchids that flower in the early part of the
year.

To-day there have come up from the country—not
from my own home, which is too dry, but from near
Salisbury—some branches cut from an old Thorn or Apple
tree, and covered with long hoary-grey moss. I have put
them into an old ginger-jar without water, and in this
way they will last through the winter. They stand now
against a red wall, where they look exceedingly well.

December 10th—There has been in this year’s
‘Guardian’ a succession of monthly papers on a Surrey
garden, written by Miss Jekyll of Munstead Wood,
Godalming. I give her address, as she now sells her
surplus plants, all more or less suited to light soils,
to the management of which she has for many years
past given special attention. These papers have much
illuminating matter in them, and are called ‘ Notes from
Garden and Woodland.’ All the plants and flowers
about which Miss Jekyll writes she actually grows on
the top of her Surrey hill. Her garden is a most
instructive one, and encouraging too. She has gone
through the stage, so common to all ambitious and
enthusiastic amateurs, of trying to grow everything, and
of often wasting much precious room in growing
inferior plants, or plants which, even though they may
be worth growing in themselves, are yet not worth the
care and feeding which a light soil necessitates if they
are to be successful.

This, to me, rather delightful characteristic of ama-
teurs in every art was severely condemned by Mr.
Ruskin in my youth, when he said that the amateur
sketcher always attempted to draw the panorama of Rome
on his thumb-nail, instead of humbly trying to reproduce
what was at his own door. The practice is just as
common in gardening as in music and painting.

DECEMBER 251

Every plant that Miss Jekyll names is worth getting
and growing in gardens that are of considerable size, and
which more or less share her Surrey soil and climate.
I trust that before long these articles will be republished
in book form, for every word in them deserves attention
and consideration.

December 12th.—One of the every-day English dishes
that is often so bad, and can be so excellent, is the old,
much-abused hashed mutton. What I am going to say
about it applies equally well to every kind of meat that
is warmed up. Make the sauce early in the day with
stock, gravy, onions, and other vegetables, or, failing this,
afew drops of two or three of the bought sauces, and
one or two drops of essence of garlic. Garlic, which is
excellent as a flavouring to most sauces, is such a
dangerous thing to use in a kitchen that the way I
manage it is this :—Put five or six cloves of garlic into a
wide-necked bottle and cover them with good spirits of
wine. When wanted, stick a skewer or fork into the
spirit and use a drop or two. The spirit evaporates and
the flavour of the garlic remains. But even in this way
it must be used carefully for English palates. To return
to the sauce for the hash: avoid flour, or, if it must be
a little thickened, let it only be with what is called
‘brown roux’ in ‘Dainty Dishes.’ The really essential
point is to make your sauce first and let it get cold, and
then warm up the meat and the sauce together. If you
throw meat of any kind into hot sauce, you are certain
to make it hard ; it contracts the fibre of the meat, and
spoils it.

One of the very few ways in which wild duck can
be warmed up is to mince it fine and then curry it with
some well-cooked curry sauce. This is made on the
same principle as the curry mentioned before; that is to
say, the onion and apple (if you cannot get apples, goose-

252 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

berries, or rhubarb, or any fruit will do) must be fried
together, and the stock and curry powder added, well
cooked, and rubbed through a fine sieve, allowed to get
cool, and the mince and sauce just warmed up together
before serving. For currying fish or vegetables a little
milk or cream softens the sauce.

Stewed meats are seldom really good in England.
The following is a good way of cooking haricot of
mutton :—Set a stew-pan on the fire (an earthenware one
is the best) with a little butter in it; put in some pieces
of raw mutton, neatly jointed and cut up small; fry
till a nice brown colour. Take out the meat, place
it on a dish, add some carrots, turnips, onions, celery,
and a very little sugar, and fry in the butter. When
brown, replace the meat, and pour in some cold water or
weak stock—enough to cover all the ingredients. Stew
gently for three hours. The stewing can be done in the
oven or on the hot-plate. If cooked in an earthenware
pot, this stew, as well as many others done in the same
way, can be sent to table in the pot with a clean napkin
pinned round it.

When vegetables are scarce in winter, and you have
cooked carrots, turnips, onions, celery, &c., strained
from the soup the night before, it is a good plan to chop
them up and warm them in a little butter with a small
lump of sugar, some pepper and salt, and serve them for
luncheon. If the quantity is insufficient, you can easily
add some cold potatoes and cabbage.

Potatoes, now so often forbidden by doctors, seem to
me excellent, wholesome food for people who do not eat
meat. They can be cooked in such an endless variety of
ways, though most English cooks confine themselves, as a
rule, to only two or three. The secret of good mashed
potatoes is to boil them dry, and beat them up with
boilmg milk, adding a little butter or cream. Cold

DECEMBER 253

milk makes them heavy, and spoils them. Another way
is to put in a stew-pan some potatoes and two or
three sliced onions, to boil, with only enough water to
cover them. When they are done, beat them well with
a fork, have ready some boiling milk and a piece of
butter, stir these in by degrees as you beat, till the
potatoes are like a thick purée. ‘Dainty Dishes’ has
several receipts for cooking potatoes.

A seaweed called Laver is a delicious, wholesome, and
uncommon vegetable in London in November and
December. It is to be bought at any of the really good
grocers’, not greengrocers’. The London supply, I be-
lieve, comes from Devonshire, prepared and cooked, and
requires nothing beyond a little stock and butter to
moisten it when it is warmed up. It should be served
in a small copper saucepan with a lamp under it, as it is
not good unless very hot indeed. For helping it a small
wooden spoon is better than a silver one; at least, so it
used to be served in old days in the North, when I
remember it as a child. Half a lemon is sent up with it.
A good many people do not like it, I am bound to
confess; but those who do, find it a treat they look
forward to—and it is good either by itself or with any
roast meat, especially mutton.

The same little copper saucepan is useful for a wild
duck sauce which I always make on the table. The
saucepan, on a spirit-lamp, comes up with some gravy in
it; I then squeeze in half or all of a lemon, according to
quantity required, and add a little red wine—Port is the
best—and some Cayenne pepper. When warm, I pour it
over the slices of wild duck on each plate. Wild duck
should be very lightly roasted.

Rice plays a large part in our cooking all the year
round ; Patna is nearly always the best. Risotto 4 la
Milanese is an original Italian receipt :—Cut up four onions

254 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

very fine, and fry a nice brown. Throw into the stew-pan
1b. of rice, and letit slightly colour; then moisten with good
stock, and cook it for 35 minutes. Season with pepper
and salt, a little nutmeg, and Parmesan cheese. Serve
very hot. Chopped truffles or mushrooms may be added.

An excellent winter salad for serving with wild duck
and many other birds is watercress, carefully picked and
washed, pieces of orange (cut as described below for the
compote), all the juice of the oranges, and a few drops of
good salad oil added just before serving.

Orange compote depends almost entirely on the good-
ness of the oranges, and on the way they are cut. The
best plan is to stick them on a fork, and with a sharp-
pointed kitchen knife remove, at one cutting, all the peel
and all the white. Then, with the sharp point of a knife,
cut out all the pieces of orange between the white lines,
leaving the white in the middle. Save all the juice,
and cut small shreds of the peel without any white, put
them into some water with sugar and the juice, and, if
the oranges are very sweet, add a little lemon juice.
Boil up this syrup, pour it over the pieces of orange, and
allow it to cool. This is a good foundation for any
winter compote. Apricots, bananas, or pineapple, all
can be added, separately or together; and a few dried
cherries stewed improve the appearance. Another excel-
lent winter compote is made by cutting up a ripe pine-
apple (often so cheap), stewing the peel in a syrup, to
which is added the juice that runs out of the pineapple,
and a little ginger. Strain, and pour it boiling over the
pieces of pineapple. A few bananas cut up and added
to the pineapple improve it.

Two excellent ways of serving cold chicken for small
parties or suppers are the following :—Order the day
before from a good baker some extra small dinner-rolls,
cut off the tops, and take out the crumb. Mince a little

DECEMBER 255

chicken and ham or tongue; it takes a very small quan-
tity of either. Mix with well-made Mayonnaise sauce,
a little chopped parsley, and a very little onion. Put
this into the rolls, and replace the small round top on
each. Finger rolls, cut in half and the crumb taken out,
can be done in the same way.

The other way is to make some little open sand-
wiches—we call them Barrington sandwiches—in the
following manner :—Butter some moderately thick slices
of a good tin loaf, and cut them into medium-sized
rounds. Lay across them, in pieces cut quite narrow,
some breast of cold chicken, a quarter of an anchovy,
and a thin shred of green gherkin. These form narrow
bars of green, white, and red across the slices of bread.
Trim the edges, and serve on a plate one laid partly over
the other, like cutlets.

I particularly want to say a last word to housekeepers
who are anxious to indulge in hospitality. Hospitality
should mean, to my mind, not altering our whole way of
living, but giving the best of our habitual food. For this
nothing is so telling, whether the dinner be large or
small, as the procuring of some special seasonable luxury.
It is well worth taking the trouble to get any such
luxuries, not from the usual shop in your neighbourhood,
but from the very best shop you know of for each
speciality, whether fish, game, vegetable, Italian goods
more especially, fruit (fresh or bottled), dessert, biscuits,
or cake. The really good housekeeper is alert to learn
where the best things come from, and to take hints
wherever she goes. One should never through idle-
ness give up getting the best things. If you go to the
expense of entertaining at all, it makes little difference
in the way of money whether you deal at a specially good
shop or a second-rate one, and the results at your table
are very different indeed.

256 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

London shops are now full of sun-dried American
fruits, principally apples and apricots. These appear to
me to be safer and wholesomer, particularly for children,
than tinned or bottled fruit. If carefully carried out, the
following receipt makes them excellent :—Select the fruit
you intend to use, and rinse it thoroughly in clear, fresh
water; then place it in a dish with sufficient water to
cover it, and allow it to soak for ten or fifteen hours
before it is required for use. After this, put it in the
vessel in which it is to be cooked (which ought, of course,
to be earthenware), simmer it slowly, letting it come just
once in a way to the boil, until it is thoroughly cooked. If
the water in which the fruit was soaked is thrown away,
and fresh water substituted, much of the flavour and
nutriment of the fruit will be lost. Sufficient sugar
should be added, when the fruit is nearly done, to make
it palatable. Dried fruit cooked in this way can be
served either hot or cold, as may be desired. As a rule,
when allowed to cool, it will be fully as palatable as if
eaten warm. By cooking dried fruit according to this
method, there will be secured a wholesome and palatable
dish, full flavoured, and resembling as near as possible,
in appearance, size, and taste, the original fresh product.

This also is good :—Bavarois of fruit, bottled or fresh.
Warm the fruit and rub it through a hair sieve, and add
just enough isinglass, previously melted in a little water,
to set the fruit when cold. Add some cream, and pour
into a mould, keeping back a little fruit to make a syrup,
which should be poured round before serving. Icing
improves the dish.

257

SONS

Boys and girls—The health question—Early independence—Public
schools—Influence of parents—The management of money—
Family life and its difficulties—Sir Henry Taylor—‘ Mothers and
Sons ’—The feeding of children—The abuse of athletics—Success
in life—Spartan upbringing —Youth and age.

I FEEL sure you all, as my nieces, care enough for my
views on most things to wish for a few remarks on the
great question of how to bring up boys and girls. The
opinion of anybody who has thought at all and who has
lived a long life is worth having as the personal ex-
perience of one individual. Age is to life what distance
is to landscape, it makes all things assume fairer pro-
portions and embrace a larger horizon. We see more
plainly the good and the bad in all systems, any con-
victions we may still have we hold conditionally, and
we lose the confidence with which we stepped out when
we knew less and felt more.

I had better begin first with the boys, and speak of
the girls later on, which is certainly dealing with the
matter in the old, conventional way.

It is a well-known fact that more boys are born into
the world than girls, but they are more difficult to rear,
which accounts for the greater preponderance of women
in the end. I suppose I ought to have more to say about
boys than girls, for, as you know, I have had only boys
of my own. My mother used to say it was a merciful

8

258 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

interposition of Providence that I had no girls, as I was
totally unfit to bring them up. Naturally I do not agree
with this, and should have liked immensely to have had
three girls as well as three boys.

The health question from the very beginning is one of
the greatest importance. In the case of boys, at any rate,
it cannot come naturally to any young mother. Her
knowledge and intelligence, however, should at least be
sufficient to let her know when things are not going right.
As a rule, children grow up as ‘Topsy’ did: ‘’Specs I
growed.’ Butevery now and then terrible things happen
which, with a little sense and knowledge of when to call
in a specialist, are quite preventable. I pity the parent
who has to say: ‘Alas! I knew too late.’

One of the great difficulties in the emancipating of the
children of the well-to-do—by which I mean helping them
to learn independence, and to take care of themselves in
early childhood—is the nervousness of mothers and nurses.
If parents would only consider how sharp are the
children of the London poor in looking after themselves,
I think they would gain courage, and their children
would profit. I know a child, the youngest of a family,
a fine, plucky little fellow, whose whole nature was
altered by being put out of frocks into knickerbockers and
his hair cut short when very young. One day this child
was taken by his father, at the age of four and a half, to
the City, and sent back alone on the top of a bus that
set him down at the end of the street in which he lived.
He had been given sixpence to pay his fare, and, arriving
at home safely, he proudly and triumphantly handed the
change to his mother. This same child, at twelve years
old, after leaving his private school, and before going to a
public school, was sent to Paris to learn French. Witha
guide-book in one pocket and a map in the other, he found
his way about alone all over the town. To my mind, pre-

SONS 259

cocity that comes from development of character and in-
dependence, or from the stimulus of ambition, is as
desirable as that resulting from over-excitement or over-
bookwork is the contrary.

As soon as children are no longer babies, it is very
unwise to leave them much with servants. Little boys
have no natural employments at home, especially in towns,
when once they go to school. Ishould recommend parents
who live in London to give up dining out during the winter
holidays. It is only for four weeks, and the evenings at
home with parents out are certainly dull for boys; this
applies doubly where there are no sisters. I used to
think the perfect education for boys was the foreign way,
to live at home and attend a day school: but the universal
condemnation of this system by young Englishmen has
shaken me, and certainly we have hardly any machinery
prepared for carrying it out. The public school system,
therefore, seems to be the only one here. At any rate,
boys are brought up at school in the mythologies of their
time and country, as Huxley used to recommend ; and on
the whole that seems to answer best. The thing most to
be avoided, it appears to me as I look back on life, is
bringing up children on any sort of fad, however genuine
the conviction of the parents that they are right and other
people wrong. There is no mistaking the bitterness with
which young men talk if they have been brought up in
any way that alienates them from their generation. This
applies equally to great and little things—from the training
of the strict Anglican clergyman, or in the Agnostic’s
morality, to affectations in dress or peculiarities of diet.

It is important that parents should not be unduly
elated by good school reports, for they mean but little.
The typical top-of-the-class boy, a good plodding fellow
who gives no trouble, is always a favourite with the
master, but he hardly ever does anything in after-life

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260 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

An idle, naughty boy sometimes reaches the top out of
sheer talent; but that is quite a different matter. These
things always depend a good deal on temperament. If you
are stupid, it is easier to become good than to become
clever; and you must never forget that, for the tortoises
to win the race, the hares must go to sleep—and that is
just what does not happen in these days. The world of
school is an immense experience in itself, but a world
represented by one sex alone is apt to give only a narrow
and one-sided training. The necessary discipline, too,
by which a school is regulated gives but little scope for
boys to learn how to take care of themselves in the every-
day world outside of it. It is only in the holidays that
they can gain any experience as to the management of
their lives, or—and above all—the employment of their
time independently of rule. I once asked a boy how he
made up his mind at school about what was right and
what was wrong. He looked up, and said without
hesitation, ‘I always try and think what father would
say about it.’ At school, morality and public opinion
can be as little decided by hard-and-fast rules as in the
world. There, as in after-life, always speaking the truth
without reserve, especially when it concerns others, may
resolve itself into being only a form of self-indulgence.
A great many mothers recognise this when it is brought
home to them that their boy has refused to speak the
truth in a way that would implicate others. At the same
time parents seldom put it plainly before a boy that there
may be occasions when it is a far higher standard of
morality to bear personal blame than to implicate others
by speaking the truth. He ought not to have the
additional pain of fearing he is doing that which would
displease his parents, and is contrary to the principle of
simple and direct truthfulness which has been inculcated
at home. I hope nobody, on reading this, will imagine

SONS 261

that I am advocating want of truthfulness as a principle, or
that I doubt for a moment that the fact of speaking truth
intentionally, even to the injury of self, is one of the most
essential strengtheners of man’s moral nature. It does
not always come naturally, however, as many imaginative
children lie, and weaklings are sure to lie, hate it as they
may, for it is the certain fruit of fear. Jean Paul Richter
speaks of it in the following terms :—‘ Lying, that devour-
ing cancer of the inner man, is more severely judged and
defined by the feeling of nations than by philosophers.
The Greeks, who suffered their gods to commit as many
crimes with impunity as their present representatives, the
gods of the earth, do yet condemn them for perjury—that
root and quintessence of a lie—to pass a year of lifelessness
under the ground in Tartarus, and then to endure nine
years of torments. The ancient Persian taught his child
nothing in the whole circle of morality but truthfulness.’

Truthfulness is so essential to moral superiority that
any young man who consistently acts a part in life for
ambitious or other reasons is very apt to become morally
degenerate, and hardly able to distinguish between truth
and falsehood. It is one of the things which, when
discovered, is perhaps almost unduly punished by the
contempt showered on it by contemporaries. It has been
finely said, ‘ Principle is a passion for truth.’

While boys are still at school, is it not distinctly
wrong for both parents to be away and out of easy reach
atthe same time? Accidents so often happen, and school
authorities, more especially school doctors and surgeons,
are not to be depended upon, as they cannot give the
time and attention which a boy naturally receives at
home. If the eyes of love could be bought with money,
love would not mean very much in the world; and it does
mean a good deal, in spite of what many think, and, still
more, of what many say.

262 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

The common attitude of mind of intelligent boys who
have recently gone to school, is that they know every-
thing about life, and that their mother understands
nothing. The boy thinks his mother good, and that no
good women know anything of life; and that settles the
question. As he gets older, the mother must explain to
him what she thinks proper. These matters, however,
depend so much upon the character of the mother and son
that it is impossible to generalise upon them. Mothers
will, I think, rarely get much help from the fathers on
the subject of school life. Most men have a wonderful
knack of forgetting the difficulties of their own boyhood.
The influence and example of the father in the home is
immense. What he does, the boys will probably wish to
do. Direct help in the difficulties of boy-life comes much
more from the mother than from the father. For this
reason I should say that the mother must take every pains
to educate herself, and learn to understand as much about
human nature as she possibly can. <A course of French
novel-reading—and, after all, a great many French novels
are magnificent literature—is not otherwise than a harm-
less and yet useful way of eating of the tree of knowledge
for a mother of five-and-thirty. The French have an
extraordinarily honest way of facing the facts of life and
the results of conduct, and they are far less sentimental
than the English. This advice, of course, applies doubly
to the woman who has not read French novels for her
amusement in her youth. From. the time a boy first
goes to school, and still more, I think, when he is six-
teen or seventeen, the mother should put a strong guard
on herself not to worry him about his comings and goings,
or in any way restrict his independence, as the sooner he
learns to take care of himself the better. As regards the
really serious things of life, you should not ‘nag,’ but
up to a certain age you can forbid.

SONS 263

For a boy of seventeen, I believe it to be a very wise
thing, as an introduction to life, that he should be given a
latch-key. He is then proud of the privilege and much
less likely to abuse it than if only given to him when he
is much older. To deny it altogether to young men who
are living at home seems to me both irritating and
ridiculous. So many of the serious sorrows and
troubles of life come from ignorance, rather than from
wickedness, that it is advisable to send the boy of about
this age to some friendly, worldly-wise, intelligent doctor,
asking him beforehand to give the boy as much advice
and instruction as a man of twenty-four might have learnt
from bitter experience.

One of the most useful things a boy can be taught
at home is the value of money. With a well-trained
sensible boy a half-allowance for clothes should be begun
at twelve years old (by a half-allowance I mean an
allowance that includes pocket-money and is sufficient to
buy every article of dress except cloth clothes), and at four-
teen the allowance should cover all clothes and pocket-
money. When allowances are first given, be sure that the
boy starts fair with a sufficient stock of clothes, so that
he should not be handicapped from the beginning. The
best way to manage the allowance, having fixed the sum,
is for the father or mother to be the banker. The amount
of the yearly sum should be clearly made known to the
boy, and he should draw the money himself when he
requires it, as he would, later in life, from a real banker.
This gives the parent a certain control over dispropor-
tionate expenditure. Accounts should not be insisted
upon, nor even, I think, strongly urged, and, above all,
never looked at. What 7s desirable is constantly to
recommend the purchasing of useful things first, and to
watch a little that everything is paid for with ready money,
and the bills kept. So long as the world lasts, the

264 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

prodigal by nature—not from mere want of training—
and those who spend rather more money than they have,
will always be more fascinating than the careful ones.
The rash, the impetuous, and the thoughtlessly generous,
must ever prove the heart-winners; and yet those who
abet them are the first to turn on them when they are at
the bottom of the hill or in a ditch by the roadside.
Because of this, parents should force themselves to be
more willing to kill the fatted calf for the saving child
than for the prodigal. This should be impressed
upon the sons from their earliest years. In the case of a
parent really wishing to pay an extravagant son’s bills, the
hardship of it will be brought home to the son if the
parent obliges himself to give an equal sum to the other
children who have not got into debt. I am told that
giving allowances to young boys is extremely rare. I
consider it of fundamental importance in their education.
Where it fails, it is an indication of character that is full
of anxiety for the future, a serious evil to be faced, like
hip-disease or a crooked spine. Asa rule, everything is
provided for boys till the most dangerous time in their
lives, and then people are surprised that young men don’t
know how to proportion their expenditure to their means,
which practice is the only wise one for rich or poor.
Everyone is rich who has a margin, and everyone is poor
who spends more than he has. To many people what I
have just said will appear as giving a very undue pre-
ponderance to the management of money. Admitting
the wisdom of what was said of old, ‘The love of money
is a root of all kinds of evil,’ it is equally true that the
discreet management of money is the root of all kinds of
good, especially with young people. Nothing is so selfish
as extravagance. No one can doubt the truth, as put
by the modern writer who says: ‘Never treat money
affairs with levity—money is character.’ If you can say

SONS 205

of your children, when they are twenty-one, that they
have never been in debt and have never asked you for
money, you have attained a satisfactory platform, which
will enormously help the dignity of the situation. Such
children’s minds have not been pauperised, and the parent
has not been put into the difficult and painful position of
having to refuse or yield to a beggar. Children, on the
other hand, should be helped to remember that, however
free they may be left as regards the expenditure of their
own allowances, no man, woman, or child is free while
entirely dependent on money which they neither earn
nor possess by inheritance. How often does a son, fresh
from leaving school, who is dying to go for a visit or a
holiday, or to buy a gun or a dog, go first to his mother,
of whom he is not afraid, to plead his cause with his
father for the money he wants! This is a distinctly
wrong system, whether the father is rich or poor, an
extravagant man himself, or the contrary. If the boy
gets what he wants at once, he accepts it as a right, and is
quite ready at Christmas toask formore. If itis denied or
grudgingly given, he resents it with irritation as a want
of generosity and a needless check on his pleasures.
Whereas, if the amount of the allowance is from the first
proportioned to the income of the parents, it is brought
home to their minds what the children are likely to cost
them; while the boy is made to realise that, be the
allowance large or small, his expenses must be propor-
tioned to it. In the case of really poor parents it is
especially necessary to impress upon the whole family
that, with regard to pleasures, education, or even
necessities, everything is subservient to the fact that
money can only go as far as it will. Of course, if it were
necessary, or even desirable, each member of a family
might contribute what he or she can afford to the
advantage of one member of it. Not a bad illustration of

266 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

what I mean is touchingly told in the Life of Sir James
Simpson, the famous Edinburgh doctor, All his elder
brothers contributed to educate the clever youth, above
their station in life, for a profession of which he became
so distinguished an ornament.

Once more I ask you to consider how common it
seems in human nature that people will give what they
are asked for and bothered about, rather than what they
can afford. However much this weakness may be taken
advantage of in the charitable world, it is most desirable
that it should be kept out of family life. Some people
even put forward the objection that allowances check the
growth of generosity. As a matter of fact, the very
essence of generosity is to give what is your own, and, in
the highest sense, there is no generosity without self-
denial. Often no one appears so generous as the worldly
spendthrift, who gives with a free hand what in fact he
owes to his tradespeople. Another idea is that the
independence resulting from freedom in money matters
increases the difficulty of home life. This is markedly
more the case in England than in other European
countries. Nations are so unconsciously steeped in the
atmosphere of their literature that I have often won-
dered whether ‘King Lear’ has helped to bring about
the state of mind in parents who, though most anxious
to leave money to their children after death, yet so
grudgingly deal it out to them, either in allowance or
capital, during their lifetime. One of the amusing
anomalies of the new succession duties is that they have
induced many parents, who have never thought of it
before, to pay over while they are still alive a portion
of their capital to their children. This gives a young
man an experience in money management which he could
not have gained while only receiving an allowance.

A frequent mistake of parents, even when they think

SONS 267

a great deal about their children, is the conviction that
they know them so well. After a child grows up and his
nature develops, his one idea is to go forth and make his
own friends and start his own life; and when he comes back
to the home, however much his heart warms to it when he
is away, he re-enters it with different eyes, and often with
a critical spirit. This seems very hard to the parents, who
have changed but little. The best way of making their love
appreciated is not to exact more than they get. The real
time of trial to parents is when their children are between
seventeen and twenty-one. They would do well to realise
how little they know of the change that is going on in their
sons. They can only cultivate them, humour them, and,
if possible, win them. Till this has been done, it is
absolutely useless to expect their confidence or to resent
the fact that it is withheld. The more openly a child has
been brought up and encouraged to speak his mind, the
more odious and critical his language will appear at this
age to outsiders who do not realise how far better it is that
he should express his views without reserve at home than
that he should disguise his feelings there and speak openly
abroad. It should only be impressed upon children that it
is in better taste and more according to the rules of society
to keep their criticisms for the privacy of family life.

The judicious management of parents by good sons
and daughters often makes a home seem happy for a
time ; but I think a few open and even angry discussions
are wholesomer for the characters of the young than a
trained duplicity implying peace where there is no peace.
In our present civilisation, no one being can rule the
destiny of another by force, not even in the case of a
father and his children. I think it well to remember in
our homes Swift’s saying that ‘Government without the
consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery,
though eleven men well armed will certainly subdue one

268 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

single man in his shirt.’ A father cannot get the eleven
men, 80 he had better not try to govern in this spirit. Tis
only power, if he loses the affection and respect of his
children, is that base and ignoble one given by money,
which-—in the case of men, at any rate—is powerless
against the noblest and best. All people, both young and
old, should remember the wise saying that we never feel
so much at ease with our consciences as when we are
dwelling complacently on the faults of others.

There will always be men and women, but perhaps
more men than women, who all through life believe in
luck—those who think when things go wrong that they
have been cheated and frustrated by others, whereas
nothing has happened but what was bound to happen.
Men of this stamp often endure life heroically and are
clever, inventive, interesting human beings ; but they are
ruled by cireumstances, instead of ruling them: they
submit to life, instead of making it.

! must not omit to mention a book, called ‘ Notes from
Life,’ by Sir Henry Taylor. It is out of fashion and
forgotten now, but it made a very great impression upon
mein my youth. Sir Henry Taylor, as everyone knows,
was the author of ‘Philip Van Artevelde: a Dramatic
Romance.’ This work made him famous at the time of
its publication ; it is still read by students of English
literature, and there is no grander subject for a dramatist
than the moulding of tough natures. I believe it was
never put on the stage ; and, after all, an unactable play
must always remain a kind of literary mule. Sir Henry
Taylor bound himself to us most tenderly by writing a
poem in memory of my father, who died at Nice in 1843.
It was reprinted in Sir Henry’s autobiography a few
years ago. One of the most distinguished of our Lord
Chancellors described it to me as the finest memorial
poem in the English language. What little worldly

SONS 269

philosophy I acquired in my youth I learnt from Sir
Henry. The ‘Notes from Life’ are on Money, Humility
and Independence, Choice in Marriage, Wisdom, Children
The Life Poetic, and The Ways of the Rich and Great.
In spite of all that has been written on such subjects
since, I still think the book well worth reading. The
tone of the articles is more religious than would be the
case now if written by a man who held the same broad
and elastic views that he did. He belonged essentially to
that large band of good and wise men who never tell
their religion, but his language in these essays is that of
the fashion of his time. The essays called ‘Money,’
‘Marriage,’ and ‘ Children ’ seem to me now as interesting
and suggestive as when I first read them.

In 1892 a little book was published called ‘ Mothers
and Sons.’ It made some impression on a good many
mothers, and this is not surprising, as it was written by the
successful headmaster of a public school. I cannot but
differ widely from a book which, while it professes to
teach a mother’s duty to her son, ignores all reference to
the husband and father. The tact of mothers is dis-
puted in the introduction, and it cannot be denied that
women vary very much in their successful management
of children and servants, and these two go pretty much
together. But, however much a father may leave the
training and management of his sons to their mother,
his blood runs in their veins, his example is daily before
them, and what he is they will be, more or less.
Heredity, I admit, sometimes plays us strange pranks ;
but I think, if people will honestly look round on the
circle of their acquaintances, they will find, in nine cases
out of ten, that the stamp of the children belongs to the
name they bear—to the family of the father, not of the
mother. The tone of a child’s mind, especially a boy’s, is
very much what was represented in one of ‘Punch’s’

270 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

pictures some years ago—a manly young monkey standing
up before his mother and saying: ‘ What a happy day it
was for you, mother, when you married into our family !’

T should not have alluded to the headmaster’s book
at all but for the very cordial way I agree with
Chapter IV., called ‘Food.’ The following passage
seems to me entirely true :—‘ Pendulums have a way of
swinging ; and if starvation or under-feeding was a danger
to boys thirty years ago, it is luxury and over-feeding
with which the sons of nearly all classes are threatened
in 1892.’ No one advocates more strongly than I do
that young children should be wholesomely and suf-
ficiently fed (the size of the body depends on this with all
animals), even to the point of occasional stomach attacks.
The moment, however, that a child is not well, parents
should realise that what weakens it is—not the want of
food which it refuses to swallow, but the fever brought
on by internal derangement from overloading the stomach.
Nearly all sick children like fruit, and I think, if fruit and
bread alone were given them for a day or two, they
would generally get well without any doctor or medi-
eines. Of course, if the nurse insists on giving just a
little magnesia as well, the whole thing is spoilt. Fruit
does not do with any form of alkaline drug. It is most
important to keep to one treatment or the other—the
acid or the alkaline; if not, the poor child’s inside is
turned into a saline draught. The author points out,
with great severity and truth, the absurdity of the fact
that boys are fed in the most stimulating way on meat,
wine, and beer. If, as is sometimes the case, the wine
and beer are knocked off, they are doubly allowed and
encouraged to eat as much as they like, which, in order
to live healthily, they have to work off by playing for
hours at football and cricket. Inconsistently enough, they
seem to acknowledge that, for rowing, heavy eating is

SONS . | 271

bad. The athlete and the Alpine climber know it well.
It is proverbial that the navvy, who is said to eat
enormously with a view to keeping up his strength, is
worth nothing at all in the way of work by the time he is
forty. Nowhere are gout and rheumatism so prevalent,
in spite of the beauty of the climate, as in Australia,
where meat is cheap, and people live principally upon it.
I maintain that if more, and more decided, abstinence
were enjoined, there would be no necessity for the
number of hours that are now wasted in exercise. Mr.
John Morley, in a recent speech to some schools, refers
to this point. He says: ‘Is there not a little too much
addiction to pleasure nowadays? Do not young men
attend rather more to their athletics and sports than is
wholly good? This was what had been said:—In
Germany, young men who were going into the family
business travelled and acquired languages, and learnt to
know the tastes and habits of the natives. In England
the sons of the house devoted themselves to pleasure—to
billiards, the theatre, sport, and so on. In Germany the
father said, ‘Thank God I have a son!” In England
the son said, ‘Thank God I have a father!”’ Mr.
Morley wound up, after saying that those who worked
hard ought to have pleasure, as follows :—‘ There was no
doubt, taking the country as a whole, that pleasure and
sport were now absorbing an amount of time and mental
occupation which must block out some other objects to
which it would be well if men and women paid atten-
tion. The way to diminish exercise without loss of
health is by the very economical method of diminishing
food, especially food of that kind which is well known to
increase muscle. From the little I know of French
schools it seems to me that the exercise there is very
inadequate. We are told that Germany is our successful
rival in many forms of physical prowess and staying power,

272 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

in spite of education being more complete and universal
in that country. Is it not possible that they adjust the
balance better between study and muscular development?

I am often accused by my friends of being too
ambitious—indeed, worldly-minded—from caring too
much for the success in life of those whom I know
well and am fond of. The justification to myself of this
accusation, the truth of which I admit, is that the youth
of life is a time of preparation, and if we get no results—
no outward demonstration—that when a man has done
his best he has done well, it seems to me like going up
for an examination and then not caring if you pass, like
acting to empty houses, writing books which no one
reads, painting pictures which no one buys, or losing
money instead of making it. Every now and then a
genius is passed over by his generation and acknow-
ledged later on, but this is the exception. Broadly
speaking, the average get very much what they deserve,
and, in vaguely generalising, one can only speak of the
average. I do think that, having travelled half the
road of life, we have a right to expect moderate success,
and to feel disappointed if we do not get it. Iam sure
to be asked, perhaps a little scoffingly, ‘What do you
mean by success? Happiness?’ No, certainly not.
What I mean is easy to understand, though difficult to
define. It is the generally-accepted meaning of success,
perhaps in its lowest sense, the contrary of failure ; and I
mean the same as Mr. Morley does when he speaks of
suecess in the following words:—‘It is the bitterest
element in the vast irony of human life that the time-
worn eyes to which a son’s success would have brought
the purest gladness are so often closed for ever before
success has come.’

Tf the fashion grows of parents handing over to
children some of the money which would otherwise come

SONS 273

to them only after their parents’ death, the habit of early
saving when expenses are increased on first leaving home
might enable young people to live much more economically
than they have done in the luxurious houses where they
have been brought up. Anybody who remembers the
accounts of the childhoods of our grandfathers and
grandmothers will realise what a garret life the children
of rich people led at the beginning of the century. The
following anecdote is a small instance in point :—My
grandparents were very rich, and spent 60,000/. on the
Parliamentary election of their eldest son. My mother,
who came in the middle of a large family, has often
described to me how underfed she was as a child, and
how she would gladly pick up and eat the sucked crusts
dropped by the babies on the nursery floor. Another of the
terrors of her childhood was that during the cold Northern
winters the nurserymaid used to be sent down to break
the ice on a fountain in the yard, where the children
were habitually bathed, as a means of strengthening
them. She also remembered the keen delight with
which they welcomed the news that the ice was un-
breakable. When they grew up, after seventeen their
life was merged into that of their parents, and my
mother used to wonder what they would think of her—
she had seen so little of them during her childhood.

This bringing-up may certainly have had the effect of
enabling the children of the rich to make poorer mar-
riages than they are willing to do now after being nursed
in the lap of luxury from their infancy. Poor marriages
can be very happy if both parties realise what they
undertake, and if the husband belongs to a profession
where an increase of income is possible, and where his
professional expenditure and the position he has to main-
tain are not out of all proportion to his income as a
married man. Members of society who marry poor

T

274. POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

make a great mistake in thinking that by living even as
many as eighteen years in retirement they will lose all
their friends in a way that would prove disadvantageous
either to themselves or their children. The friends of
our youth are our contemporaries, and we never can
forget or meet on terms of formality the men and women
with whom we once were intimate. The first word that
drops from the lips, on meeting after years of separation,
is, as often as not, the old familiar Christian name.

More than thirty years ago the following little poem
was given to me as having been written in fun by James
Spedding, the distinguished author of the Life of Bacon.
I thrilled with excitement when I first read it, which will
not surprise anyone who remembers the position between
youth and age fifty yearsago. The young were supposed
to be foolish, the old to be all wisdom and experience.
Now this is so changed that the old are having rather
a bad time; and the truth contained in this poem still
appeals to me, though from an entirely different point of
view. Whether we are so fortunate as to have children,
cr so unfortunate as not to have them, it makes, in my
opinion, no difference. Once we have reached a certain
age, the sensible thing is to acknowledge that our lives
are more or less over. The best way we can then serve
our country, or give dignity and happiness to our old age,
is to lend all the help in our power to the young—in fact,
always to be ready to open the door to those who are
knocking.

THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN

When I was a freshman, old age did appear
A reverend and beautiful thing ;

For knowledge must gather as year follows year,
And wisdom from knowledge should spring.

SONS

But I found the same years that supplied me with
knowledge
Took the power to digest it away,
And let out all the store I had gathered at college
Through leaks that increased every day.

So I said—and think not I said it in jest
(You will find it is true to the letter)—

That the only thing old people ought to know best
Is that young people ought to know better.

72

275

276 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

FURNISHING

Books on furnishing—Smoking—Morris’s ‘Lectures on Art’—London
houses—New and second-hand furniture—Curtains versus blinds
—White paint—Bookecases—Bed-rooms—Bath-rooms—Bedding
—Useful tables—Rain-water.

I must give you a few of my views about furnishing,
especially as I cannot say to you, ‘Get such-and-such a
book, and you will know all I know.’ Ican name no book
that seems to me at all satisfactory on modern furnishing.
One published in 1887 and called ‘From Kitchen to
Garret, by J. EH. Panton, has gone through many
editions, and contains useful and practical hints, but I do
not at all agree with a good deal that it says. It recom-
mends what I call upholstering far too much, and the
overcrowding and decorating of rooms, and is not nearly
simple enough. I should say to any young housekeeper,
“Get the book and learn what you can from it, but reserve
to yourself a very keen judgment about many things that
it advises. As an example, I will mention that the
author grudges a man, as a matter of expense (!), his
cigarette and cigar. I know no one single thing that
gives a woman half the pleasure that smoking gives a
man ; so, as an economy, many things ina house might be
given up first. If smoking is supposed to be bad for a
man, persuade him to smoke less ; and I believe there is no
better way of inducing him to do this than to allow him to
smoke in every room in the house—drawing-room, dining-
room, mother’s bedroom, nursery. There is no greater

FURNISHING 277

proof that a house is kept sweet and aired, and therefore
healthy, than the fact that no room ever smells of tobacco.
After many years’ experience in all sorts of houses, small
and large, country and town, I can vouch for it that no
house ever does smell of smoke, if cigarettes, cigars, and
pipes are allowed everywhere, provided only that a
thorough draught can be got through the rooms. I well
know how sensitive some people are about tobacco, but it
is wonderful how much this dislike can be overcome by
custom and a desire to do so. A smoking-room other-
wise than as a man’s general room, where he can read and
write, is, I think, a very objectionable thing, and con-
ducive to a great waste of time. Let a man smoke
during his employments, and not look upon smoking as
an occupation in itself. People should guard against the
sentiment of the cheerful country hostess who received
her guest with ‘This is Liberty Hall; you can smoke in
the garden.’

Another book, called ‘How to be Happy though
Married’ (Fisher Unwin), has had an immense sale, and
is a much cleverer, better-written book than its rather
flippant title might lead one to suppose. I strongly re-
commend it to young housewives. It has a short chapter
on furnishing, with which I cordially agree, and much in
the book is well worth reading and remembering.

Mr. William Morris’s ‘ Lectures on Art,’ published in
1881, helped me more than any other book I know; it
cultivated my ideas and refined my taste. The first time
I went to Mr. Morris’s old shop in Queen’s Square, quite
as a girl, it was indeed a revelation. It had the effect of
a sudden opening of a window in a dark room. All was
revealed—the beauty of simplicity, the usefulness of form,
the fascination of design, and the charm of delicate colour.
Added to this, came the appreciation of the things that
had gone before, and which in my time had been hidden

BM

278 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN.,

away. Icame back to the various houses to which I had
been accustomed with a sigh of despair ; but the first step
towards progress must always be discontent with what
one has and with one’s own ignorance. It has sometimes
been a sorrow to me to see, in the Oxford Street shop,
that even Mr. Morris did not keep up entirely the high
and simple standard of his early years. He has some
golden rules in the lecture called ‘The Beauty of Life,’
perhaps the truest and most concise of which is one that
none of us really act up to: ‘ Have nothing in your houses
that you do not know to be useful or believe to be
beautiful. What would happen to the great mass of
modern wedding-presents if we really carried out this
rule? Mr. Morris preaches the sternest simplicity, and
I must say, as a mental effort, I think we ought to try
and agree with him; though rooms, to my mind, should
look warm and comfortable, and simplicity had better
consist in an absence of rubbish than in a diminution of
comfort. Mr. Morris goes on to explain what he means
by a simple sitting-room: ‘ First, a bookcase with a great
many books in it; next, a table that will keep steady
when you write or work at it; then several chairs that
you can move, and a bench that you can sit or lie upon;
next, a cupboard with drawers; next, unless the book-
case or the cupboard be very beautiful with painting or
carving, you will want pictures or engravings such as
you can afford—only not stop-gaps, but real works of art
—on the wall; or else the wall itself must be ornamented
with some beautiful and restful pattern. We shall also
want a vase or two to put flowers in, which latter you
must have sometimes, especially if you live in a town.
Then there will be the fireplace, of course, which in our
climate is bound to be the chief object in the room.
‘That is all we shall want, especially if the floor be
good; if it is not—as, by the way, in a modern house it is

FURNISHING 279

pretty well certain not to be—I admit that a small carpet
which can be bundled out of the room in two minutes will
be useful: and we must also take care that it is beautiful,
or it will annoy us terribly. Now, unless we are
musical and need a piano, in which case, as far as beauty
is concerned, we are in a bad way, that is quite all we
want, and we can add very little to these necessaries
without troubling ourselves and hindering our work, our
thought, and our rest.’ After this description, think how
very rare it is to see a room on these lines at all. One of
the most disfiguring and vulgar forms of modern
ornamentation is sticking about quantities of photographs
—masses of men and women of our acquaintance, or
royalties and celebrities. I do not mean that we should
not have one or two framed photographs, of dear friends or
relations ; for certainly, in a small degree, photographs of
those we love do fulfil Dr. Johnson’s description of
portrait-painting : ‘That art which is employed in diffus-
ing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in quickening the
affections of the absent and continuing the presence of
the dead.’

Mr. Morris spoke of the fireplace as such an im-
portant thing in our climate; it is so indeed. One of the
first essentials is that it should not smoke or be ugly, and
another is that it should give out much heat with little
consumption of coal. I consider the greatest increase of
delight possible in any kind of fireplace, no matter of what
size or make, is to have a very broad hearth of tiles, or
bricks, or stone, or marble, or anything of that sort that is
hard and fireproof, and then do away with every form of
fender or raised rim round the hearth. People have an
idea that this is not safe; but that is an entire mistake.
To be able to stand easily on the hot tiles is an immense
joy added to life, and one much appreciated by men.
Even for children instead of tumbling over the low fender,

280 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

which is a real danger, they soon feel the heat, and that
warns them to keep away from the hearth. But it is
essential that the hearth should be wider than is usual,
both for appearance and safety ; and if a finish is thought
desirable between the tiles and the floor, a flat band, three
or four inches wide, of brass or iron looks very well—but
it is not necessary. The fire-irons should be on a stand
apart, or put against the chimneypiece on hooks, or in a
hoop of iron or brass. Nothing, of course, supersedes the
high wire fender for safety in nurseries and schoolrooms.
White tiles as a lining for the sides, grates, and hearths of
fireplaces are not often used, but to my mind they are far
prettier than dark tiles, if the chimneypiece is made of
light-coloured marble or white wood, as is so common.
The adapting and improving of what we find in builders’
houses is one of our modern difficulties.

Mr. Morris is severe on pianos, and it must be
admitted they are very ugly, but great attention is now
being given to improving them. One simple inexpensive
way of doing so is to have the case very plain; the
music-desk plain bars, instead of ornamental fret-work ;
and the whole left absolutely without varnish or polish.
The housemaid’s rubbing only improves the marking on
the grain of the wood.

In London everything ought to be sacrificed to sweet-
ness and light. Let no one put on their walls or their
floors that which they cannot afford constantly to renew.
In an ordinary London house, merely keeping things
clean one year with another, inside and out, adds a con-
siderable sum yearly to the rent.

I have found it very clean and useful to wash the
corners and sides of the window-panes with Sanitas,
especially in the country in spring. It destroys the eggs
of flies and insects of all kinds, and in no way injures the
paint. It saves waste to lay on the Sanitas with a brush.

FURNISHING 281

In London nowadays the houses of the young are
freshly done up and clean and healthy. Where I find the
greatest sanitary neglect is in the homes of the middle-
aged, especially those who have lived long in one place.
Even in the houses of rich and well-to-do people, in
London, the dirt in the upstairs rooms and passages is
inconceivable. The mistress of the house is lazy or in-
different ; and as we get older, the years run on so quickly
it is impossible to realise how long it is since the
last cleaning; nothing is ever looked over, replaced, or
renewed. A favourite economy, and one to which the
best of housekeepers have a tendency, is to put old
carpets out of dining-rooms or drawing-rooms into bed-
rooms of boys and girls, often without even going to the
expense of having them cleaned. The painted floor and
a small piece of new drugget, clean and sweet, would be
infinitely more healthy and more appropriate. Another
constantly neglected corner is what is called the house-
maid’s closet. In houses where servants are not much
looked after, and even where they are, this is often the
glory-hole of dirt. I recommend the use of the white
enamel slop-pails, which are so infinitely easier to keep
clean than the old painted tin ones, though they, too, are
quite clean if they are only repainted often enough. The
whole system of living and housekeeping in England is
still sacrificed far too much to show—large sitting-rooms,
small bed-rooms, and unclean attics. However, things
are infinitely better than they used to be. In the last
century one or two footmen used to sleep on mattresses in
the front hall of the crowded little houses in Mayfair ;
and even in my childhood the custom of putting three or
four men or women into one room was quite a usual thing.

To those about to furnish I would say, ‘ Never buy new
things when you can get them second-hand.’ Procure an
ordinary illustrated price list from one of the large

282 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

furnishing shops, and with that, by which to test prices,
go to second-hand shops and sales. If you get a well-
made second-hand piece of furniture that you really
want for the same price as, or cheaper than, you could
buy painted or varnished deal—well, you know you
have not done badly. If you buy an old bookcase, or
table, or sofa, for even a little more than you would
give for the inferior modern ones, you may still congratu-
late yourself.

The only marked difference that I can see between
my house and most others, both in the country and in
London, is that I never have a roller blind. They are
expensive to put up, expensive to maintain, and very
difficult to keep clean in London. I never have them
in my own rooms, in bed-rooms or servants’ rooms, in
the stable or gardener’s cottage. What I do have is an
inner curtain hung from a small rod on the window. It
can be made of any variety of material, to suit the
different windows and the requirements of the room—
thin silk (the effects of light through silk—orange, red,
yellow, or green—are very pretty), chintz, muslin, or the
thickest dark blue or green twill lined with calico, to keep
out light in the bedrooms in the country (in London I
think light blue or green twill unlined is sufficient) ; and
the most useful of all is the common red Turkey twill,
lined or unlined, which washes year after year, and always
looks fresh, clean, and bright, and practically never wears
out. In many modern windows these inner curtains enable
you to dispense with heavy outside curtains altogether—to
my mind an advantage, as drawn curtains almost always
make a room stuffy and nearly as airless as did the
shutters of our forefathers. All the same, thick curtains
are, of course, required in the country in winter for
warmth. For an outside effect in London, it is very
pretty if the wood of the window is painted dark or light

FURNISHING 283

green, red, or blue, and if the silk curtains inside are of
the same colour to match the paint.

On first doing upa house, keep as many rooms as you
can plainly whitewashed (‘ white distemper ’ it is called),
but see that it is white, and not mixed with black, blue, or
yellow, such as painters delight in using. I think every-
thing looks well against a white wall. Covering a wall
with coarse canvas and then distempering it gives a
variety to the surface. Some people think white walls
unbecoming. I cannot agree with this. What suits the
rose and the tulip as a background ought to suit a
pretty woman in her pretty clothes. In a white room
dark furniture never looks heavy (not even the darkest
oak), and light furniture never looks poor. But white rooms
must be kept clean, as ceilings are. This necessity is a
great merit, and renewing is not expensive. [If staircases
or passages are white-washed, a dado, about a yard deep
up the side of the staircase and along the passage, of
frilled cretonne, twilled red calico, or anything cheap, is
an excellent way of protecting the wall from all the many
injuries that happen to it. If you like, you can have one
such dado for winter and one for summer, and they can
be washed or cleaned. They look best frilled onto a thin
lath of wood which pulls out. Rings are sewn on the
back for hanging the curtain onto nails or hooks screwed
into the wall at intervals.] If the wall is soft, another
thin lath of wood must be nailed to it to hold the screws.

In a white room a small piece of good drapery or old
leather hung on the wall looks well, or even a few yards
of very superior paper may be put in one place—between
windows, over a chimney-piece, behind a picture, above a
table, or under a bookcase. This form of decoration was
the common one in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
and was, in fact, the way in which tapestry came to be
used. In the old French chateaux of Touraine the

284 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

hooks that held these draperies, silks from Italy, and no
doubt many other things, are still to be seen in the walls.
As the French Court moved from chdteau to chdteau, all
this material moved with them.

If bookcases can be made to order, they are much
better raised a certain height on the wall. This is more
convenient, as grubbing on the floor for the book one
wants is very tiresome. Besides, in this way you can
have the large books at the top, with a wide shelf above
them, and the small ones below, the shelves gradually
diminishing both in height and depth from the wall.
Mr. Morris advocates, in his lectures, the painting of
deal; the only other way of treating it is simply to oil it.
Mr. Morris, I think, says nothing about painting the
floors. But that seems to me the best solution; at any
rate, for three feet round the room—red, green, black, and
above all white as often as you like, especially for bed-
rooms. Nothing is so clean, the paint wants no serub-
bing and no soda; tepid water and a cloth make every-
thing as clean as new. Staining, though a little cheaper,
wears less well, will not wash, and looks common.
Indian matting and felt look well in the country, but
are not so clean in London. Both collect the black
dust, and the former cannot be taken up. You want to
be really rich to have polished floors of oak or teak.
English housemaids cannot clean them, abroad it is
always done by men. In London it has to be done by
an upholsterer two or three times a year.

If economy is an object in furnishing, one of the best
ways of reducing the outlay in bed-rooms is by dispensing
with the modern washing-stands. The old-fashioned ones
are often too small for comfort; our ancestors cleaned
themselves with little room and less water. A large
unvarnished deal table with the legs painted to suit the
room is what I recommend. For cheapness it can be

FURNISHING 285

covered with white oil-cloth, nailed down ; though I prefer
a thick white dimity cloth, which can be washed as often
as necessary. For a luxurious washing-table, plain
coloured square tiles, sunk into a bed of cement and held
firm by a metal band, make a delightful surface. A great
addition both to comfort and tidiness in all bed-rooms is
to have a small or large cupboard, or curtained shelves (for
bottles, &c.) above the washing-stand. A couple of shelves
at the head of the bed is the best place for a bookshelf in
abed-room. It is such a pleasure, morning or night, to
be able to reach, without having to get out of bed, the
book that suits one’s mood.

Modern London builders have a most irritating way of
repeating, in house after house, the most obvious defects.
One of the worst of these is the bath: alarge tin surface
indifferently painted, which is quickly injured by the hot
water, surrounded by a mahogany rim, the varnish of
which is spotted and marked by every accessory necessary
to the bath. One can hardly imagine anything more
inappropriate. Doulton has invented a glazed earthen-
ware bath which obviates all these objections, and would
be more luxurious if the floor of the bath-room were
raised nearly to the height of its rim; the steps to reach
this raised floor could be outside the room, or inside,
according to the hanging of the door. One of the minor
luxuries of life, often not found in the largest houses, is
to have really hot water when you expect it. I have
found that large cosies—the shape of tea-cosies—to go
over the hot-water cans (one for the little can and one for
the big), easily bring this luxury within the reach of
everybody. They are made of chintz, or of any stuff that
comes handy and suits the room, lined with sateen to
tone with or contrast with the outside, and thickly
wadded. If the water is put in really hot, and the cosies
are thick and large enough to cover the can entirely, the

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286 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

water will keep hot till the morning. This, of course, is
doubly useful when there are no fires.

With all my recommendations about buying second-
hand furniture, of course I do not mean to include bedding.
I am old-fashioned enough to think that mattresses had
always better come, though more expensive, from the best
shops. If my general advice is to furnish simply, this
applies doubly to nurseries and bed-rooms. In fact, these
rooms should be of such a kind that if the surgeon or
nurse entered them with a view to an operation, they
would wish nothing altered—distempered walls, white
or coloured, grave or gay, as suits the taste; no carpets
going into the corners, but broad margins of painted
wood, white is the best. ‘Oh, it shows the dirt so!’
says the upholsterer or builder. ‘So much the better,’
should the owner of the house answer; ‘the dirt shown
on white is harmless and clean compared to the dirt
hidden by dark colours.’ The curtains should be of
the smallest and simplest kind, hung on a brass or iron
rod, merely to keep out light or to make warmth; they
should never reach to the ground, unless the window
does.

It is a serviceable and clean plan to sew strips of
holland or chintz, which can be removed and washed, on
to the edge of the mattresses; this prevents the house-
maid’s hands from dirtying them. I remember the day
when all beds were covered with what are called counter-
panes, which were even left on at night. But these now
are universally acknowledged to be unwholesome, and, for
the daytime, they have been superseded by some coloured
coverlid. I like this coverlid, which keeps the blankets
clean by day, and is folded up by night, to be the hand-
somest feature in the room, though its material may vary
from the cheapest twill or cretonne to the richest needle-
work or damask-silk, old or modern. The walls can

FURNISHING 287

always be covered gradually by framed pictures, photo-
graphs, or prints of all kinds. In a nursery, the choice
of these photographs may make an impression for life,
artistic or the contrary. A young man once said to me
that in travelling in Italy one of the chief joys he felt in
visiting the famous galleries was the recognition of a
picture that had been an old familiar friend as a framed
photograph at home. He added that, if ever he had
children, he thought one of the best decorations for
a nursery would be a dado made of photographs, of
various sizes, of some of the masterpieces of the world.
The difficulty of this would be that nurseries must be
easily cleaned and renewed, and I think the photographs
to form the dado would have to be stuck on-to thick
pasteboard or thin wood.

I would allow all young people, both boys and girls,
as much as possible to do the decorating and furnishing
of their own rooms, limiting them, of course, to the sum
intended to be spent. Taste in decorating, as in all else,
is a constant cause of difference, and what every person
objects to most is what is to them old-fashioned—that is,
what has immediately preceded their own day. ©

A detail of family life, but not at all an unimportant
one in my estimation, is the providing of a large, firm,
folding table in the general sitting-room. It can be kept
outside or in a corner of the room, and should never remain
open during the day, but be brought out nightly when the
lamps are lit and the curtains are drawn. This plan
enables every member of the family to have room for
separate employment. Everyone knows how crowded
the permanent tables become in an habitually used
sitting-room. The use of an empty table was first
suggested to my mind by some remarks made by
Goethe to HEckermann in the ‘Conversations. He
strongly recommends bringing out any good books

288 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

or pictures that you may happen to have to show your
guests. It is impossible to do this with any comfort
without a good roomy table on which to spread them.
Showing books to children of different ages often provides
an excellent topic for conversation, and even, I might
say, for instruction ; only this, I am afraid, sounds so
very ‘priggish.

A distressing feature of modern civilisation is the
utter waste, both in town and country, of the precious
rain-water that runs off our houses. It will be argued
that in London it would be black; but it is not very
difficult to remedy this—sufficiently, at any rate, for
use in washing. In the country it is priceless. No well-
cared-for baby ought ever to be washed in anything but
rain-water ; and yet, rather than make tanks, rich people,
who will buy every luxury, get their water (which in
nine cases out of ten is as hard and full of chalk as it
can be) from the nearest water company. Rain-water is
even more essential for the plants than for the baby. I
was told last year by a good gardener, who had been
peculiarly successful in growing the rare and beautiful
Table Mountain Orchid, Disa grandiflora, that he
attributed his success entirely to keeping it very moist,
but never allowing one drop of water to go near it
that was not rain-water. This is the case, in a minor
degree, with many other greenhouse and stove plants.

289

A DAY IN LONDON

Advantages of suburbs—London life—Picture exhibitions.

PEOPLE who live in London, and those who live in the
depths of the country, are both equally inclined, for differ-
ent reasons, to laugh a little, and even sneer, over the ob-
vious disadvantages of suburban residences. By suburban
I mean more the character of the surroundings than the
actual distance from London or any other large town. The
more favoured a place is as regards soil and climate, the
more thickly populated it becomes. But the near neigh-
bourhood of London has certainly immense advantages
under many conditions. For young couples, if a man is
strong and well, and has work to do in town, it is the very
poetry of life compared to London itself, and is a phase of
existence which a woman, if once she has had it, always
looks back upon with pleasure. She has her children and
her duties all day, and in the evening the man throws off his
bothers and worries and comes back to peace and happi-
ness, rest and pure air at home. When children get big,
and have tastes and talents of their own which must be
developed and educated, there is certainly much to be said
in favour of moving the home for some years to London.
When the parents are no longer young, and when, however
friendly they may be and proud of each other, they have
to pursue individually their own lives, and carry out that
partnership which is the only perfect form of middle-
aged married life, for the good of the children and the
U

290 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

general well-being of the establishment, then the oneness
of married life cannot possibly be carried on without a
certain sacrifice of what is best for the growing-up
children. But, again, in the evening of life, when friends
gradually fall away, and we become rather a duty and
perhaps even a slight burden to our children and
relations, who have their own lives to attend to, I
consider that residing in the suburbs solves, once more,
a great many of the difficulties of our complicated family
existence. Our children can easily visit us, and, if we
are not too old, we can so well go to London for duty or
pleasure, and in this way see, and hear, and learn all that
is going on. If all this is true, as I think it is, we are
saved, without actually living in London, from the
reproach that, being buried in the country, we let our-
selves go, and grow old prematurely. To be an easy
distance from town, though saying this may seem rather
a drop from the sublime to the ridiculous, certainly helps
us to cultivate the enjoyment of Nature, and, at the
same time, gives us the opportunity, if we have the
power in however slight a degree, of acquiring knowledge
for its own sake without regard to its practical applica-
tion. Surely these are the only two perfect sources of
human happiness? I do not say this thoughtlessly.
Love, in all its forms, gives a far intenser happiness, but
even in its purest form—parental love—it is accompanied
by anxiety and doubt. It begins with a kind of animal
enjoyment, and ends in the practising of continual self-
denial.

Much as I dislike leaving my garden, yesterday I
obeyed the summons of my oldest friend to spend the
day in London with her ; and certainly it turned out an
example of what I have been saying—so much so, that
I yield to the temptation of giving a slight account of it.
We spent our time in visiting Burlington House, and I

A DAY IN LONDON 291

will tell you what struck us most as we wandered
through the rooms there, in the way we used to do at the
old Academy in Trafalgar Square, when we were young
and enthusiastic. First, I took my friend to the work that I
admired most, which, I believe, will no more die in the gene-
rations to come than that of either Raphael or Benvenuto
Cellini has died, though it will be more or less admired ac-
cording to the fashion of the day. Mr. Gilbert, the seulp-
tor, is in my opinion one of the greatest geniuses we have
amongst us just now, and his exhibited work in 1896 shows
with peculiar force the comprehensiveness of his talent.
Is not the stretch between the massive, splendid portrait-
bust of Professor Owen, and the exquisitely finished, subtle,
little full-length figure of St. George, all that the Colossus
of Rhodes could boast—a foot on either shore ? With the
assertiveness of the true artist he must have insisted on the
hiding of the hideous colour on the walls, and hung a piece
of yellow-brown drapery, which harmonises splendidly
with his plaster cast. We crossed the room to look at the
least remarkable work of the three, perhaps, artistically
speaking; and yet how the bust of Sir George Grove
stands out and lives, and almost breathes, compared with
the cold dead heads that surround it! It has not the
colour of life nor the vulgar realism of waxwork, but the
plain chalk cast is a man of flesh and blood, rugged and
strong. Then we went back to the St. George, and
enjoyed it for ten minutes. Perhaps we shall never see
again its exquisite beauty—the little hands that express
so much feeling; the sad, gentle face, almost mourning
over the worthlessness of human greatness, though the
dead dragon lies coiled about his feet, and the princess is
to be his bride! Look at the cross-handled sword, and
the helmet, and the armour, and think of all it means, in
these days of cheap work, to put all that is here into one
small figure, which is, after all, only a portion of a railing
v2

292 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

round a dead young prince’s effigy, to be hidden away
for ever in a cool, dim chapel. We who studied the
little statuette are not likely to forget it, for, as a poet
said of his friend :—
Some, in whom such images are strong,
Have hoarded the impression in their heart,
Fancy’s fond dreams and memory’s joys among,

Like some loved relic of romantic song,
Or cherished masterpiece of ancient art.

As we passed back into the picture rooms we were
pleased to see that Lord Leighton’s last work apparently
gains so immensely by being unfinished; and it is in the
manner of his youth rather than of his age, rich and
harmonious in colour, passionate in sentiment—to be
looked at by those who knew him, this ideal President
of our Academy of Painting, with ‘thoughts which only
upon tears can rise. Far the most striking portraits in
the Academy are, alas! by non-Englishmen—Mr. Savr-
gent, who is an American, and M. Benjamin Constant,
who is a Frenchman. Mr. Sargent’s ‘Portrait of a
Lady ’ is surely consummate: the painting of the pearls,
the smart, bright-coloured cape, are not to be beaten by
Vandyck at his best; and oh! how far beyond any effort
even of the old masters is the sad pathos of that interest-
ing nineteenth-century face! Can we look at it and not
say with Balzac, ‘ Les drames de la vie ne sont pas dans
les circonstances, ils sont dans le cur’? It seems
rather the fashion not to admire Mr. Chamberlain’s por-
trait, and it is not quite so finished, especially the hands, as
one would wish—doubtless for want of time being given
for the sittings; all the same, it is a grand portrait of
a history-making Late Victorian statesman, and will be
looked at with reverent curiosity by the student of the
future.

And now we pass on through two or three rooms,

A DAY IN LONDON 293

avoiding what we do not like when not able to fix our
eyes on what we do, which is the acquired knack of the
habitual haunter of galleries and exhibitions, and sit down
quietly to study Mr. Abbey’s most remarkable picture of
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and the Lady Anne.

Was ever woman in this humour woo’d ?
Was ever woman in this humour won ?

And the more we looked, the more we studied, the
more remarkable the picture appeared to us. The young,
angry, and yet wicked face under the strange headdress,
the nervous clasp of the left hand, while the right seizes
the black veil, true to the instinct of some women, who,
in the moment of their greatest joy or deepest grief,
never forget their clothes! Richard, with his winning
courtesy and the bow which conceals the defects of his
figure, in his red clothes, is a strange contrast to that
other figure which we know, rather than see, lies stiff and
cold behind the guards. Historically, perhaps, Richard
looks a little old, as he was but thirty-five when killed on
Bosworth field. The guards, the crowd, the varied ex-
pressions fading actually away into the canvas, are very
fine. The painting reminds one of the old Germans, and
yet is entirely original. Is it not indeed in Art what
‘Esmond’ is in literature—an old story told in an old
manner, and yet without absolute mimicry of anything ?
And so the two old friends of forty years wandered on
and began to get tired, when we met an acquaintance,
and she said, ‘Have you seen the picture that Mr. Watts
in his generosity says is better painted than anything he
ever did?’ ‘No, where is it? What is it?’ ‘The
Leper’s Wife,” by George Harcourt, in the eleventh room.’
And so on we went with renewed strength into this
honoured eleventh room, and stood before one of the most
dramatic and moving of modern pictures A splendid

294 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

young woman, of five-and-twenty or so, clothed in bright
red, rushes with her face towards you through a wood,
with outstretched arms, her face glowing with love and
devotion, and her lips parted; behind her are great
banks of cumuli, sanguine-stained from the setting sun,
and the stems of the trees glow with the same light.
Pure, small, white wood-flowers grow about her feet. All
this to represent the joy and the pride of life, which she
willingly leaves to join her leper husband, who stands in
the dark shadow of his humble hut, clothed from head to
foot in grey leper draperies, slightly recalling Mr. Watts’s
own beautiful figure of ‘Love and Death ’—the head
turned away, and the hand upheld forbidding her
approach, unable to appreciate the love she brings him,
or loving her too well to allow of any risk for her sake,
though she cries: ‘ Kiss me, in the name of the everlasting
God! I will live and die with you!’ ‘The sacrifice
could bring him no joy; and so it will ever be, not only
to the leper—for the love of men is not as the love of
women.

It seems impossible anyone should share our ignor-
ance, so I will merely state that as the two old friends,
who had led such different lives, stood entranced before
the picture, we neither of us knew it was the illustration
of a poem called ‘Happy, or The Leper’s Bride,’ in
Tennyson’s last volume, ‘Demeter and Other Poems.’
He gives in a note an interesting account of the decision
of the Church, in the twelfth century, that marriage was
indissoluble, and that the lepers’ wives might rejoin their
husbands if they liked.

Once more overcome with fatigue, we sat down on
a bench, to rest before leaving, when a wonderful little
maiden passed, cleanly but very poorly dressed for these
days, with beautifully and yet fashionably dressed hair, and
far-away dreamy eyes. ‘That, no doubt, is a young artist

A DAY IN LONDON 295

treading the Asphodel meadows of her youth. My
friend answered, ‘I daresay it is true. Let us tell her of
the picture we have enjoyed so much ;’ and running after
her she brought her back, all smiles, saying to me, ‘ This
lady is not an artist, as we thought, but the next thing
to it, a model, enjoying the pictures she has helped to
make.’ Seeing she had no catalogue, we presented her
with ours, and left her in that undying Elysian world of
Art, while we slowly went down the steps with the strong
conviction upon us that age had not yet robbed us of
the power of spending a happy grey summer morning in
London.

296 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

HEALTH

Nurses—‘ Janet’s Repentance ’—Private hospitals—Sick-nursing—
Convalescence—Medical books.

Our home-coming this September was an agitating and
painful one. We had been warned by telegraph that we
should find grave sickness in the house, and so indeed it
was. Doctors, nurses, everything provided before we
were able to get back. How little can the young of the
present day understand the complete revolution that has
come over family life in the last half-century, and how
changed are our relations towards the sick, though
the invalid may be our nearest and dearest! Thirty years
ago, even in the houses of the comparatively rich, it was
exceedingly difficult to get help in illness; an old char-
woman, a coachman’s wife, or a servant out of place, was
considered all that was necessary. Even a partially trained
nurse was a very rare thing, and never sought for except
in cases of severe operation or dangerous fevers. It seems
almost impossible to believe that chloroform was not used
till the middle of the ’Forties, and that Liston’s first great
operation with the patient unconscious from ether was in
1848. Now, in spite of the many blessings nurses generally
bring to the patients, I think the fact that they are usually
good and very easily obtained is one cause of the deterio-
ration in home-life clearly perceptible to all of us who
are of a certain age. Sickness does not now strain every
nerve, nor bring the same occupation, the same real

bas’

HEALTH 207

work, mental and physical, that it used to do. The
feeling of responsibility, of constant anxiety, is taken off
our shoulders and laid on the nurse. Loving members
of a family have just to continue their ordinary lives, for
mere occupation’s sake, and to avoid the reproach of
giving way to useless grief, however anxious they may be.
Ministering to those we love is too often denied us, and
the patient’s gentle gratitude, which used to tighten for
life the bonds of affection, either does not now exist, or
is given to a hard-worked, perhaps overworked, woman
who does not want it, and who is here to-day and gone
to-morrow. Her services, however excellent and efficient,
are given for money, and are and ought to be perfectly
different from the tender and devoted services prompted
by love. All sensible doctors recognise this.

George Eliot, whose large-minded philosophy did so
much to form the youth of my generation, is not, I am told,
much read—or, at any rate, not much appreciated—now
by the young. There is a splendid passage in ‘ Janet’s
Repentance’ which brings home to us the lesson of the
sick-room as no words of mine could do. This lesson
is sadly missed under the modern condition of things,
and the want of it has perhaps caused that rebellion
against sorrow and sickness which we so often see now-
adays. It is a lesson which those who learnt it young
never forget, for it colours the whole of their lives :—

‘Day after day, with only short intervals of rest, Janet
kept her place in that sad chamber. No wonder the
sick-room and the lazaretto have so often been a refuge
from the tossings of intellectual doubt—a place of repose
for the worn and wounded spirit. Here is a duty about
which all creeds and all philosophers are at one ; here, at
least, the conscience will not be dogged by doubt, the
benign impulse will not be checked by adverse theory ;
here you may begin to act without settling one preliminary

298 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

question. To moisten the sufferer’s parched lips through
the long night-watches, to bear up the drooping head,
to lift the helpless limbs, to divine the want that can
find no utterance beyond the feeble motion of the hand,
the beseeching glance of the eye—these are offices that
demand no self-questioning, no casuistry, no assent to
propositions, no weighing of consequences. Within the
four walls where the stir and glare of the world are shut
out, and every voice is subdued—where a human being
lies prostrate, thrown on the tender mercies of his fellow
—the moral relation of man to man is reduced to its
utmost clearness and simplicity ; bigotry cannot confuse it,
theory cannot pervert it, passion awed into quiescence
can neither pollute nor perturb it. As we bend over the
sick-bed, all the forces of our nature rush towards the
channels of pity, of patience, and of love, and sweep down
the miserable choking drift of our quarrels, our debates,
our would-be wisdom, and our clamorous, selfish desires.’

If this picture is true, and every word of it comes home
to me as a truth, then surely life as it is now is in some
respects a poorer, weaker thing in consequence of the
modern idea which, under the power of the medical pro-
fession, sends our husbands to a private hospital for an
operation, and hands over our sick in our own homes, let us
say to the very best of women, but to women who never saw
them before, and who, we hope, will never see them again.
These excellent women, though paid by you, are virtually
the servants of the doctor, to do his bidding, and even,
if necessary, to cover and veil his mistakes or screen his
faults. The professional reputation of the nurse is not
in any way affected by the life or death of her patient; so
long as she does her duty, death is an incident in the course
of business. But her very livelihood depends on her saying
that the operation was well performed, and on pleasing
the doctor who attends after the operation is over. I do

HEALTH 299

not say this as a reproach to anyone, or even as a con-
demnation of a system which, if logically carried out, as
fortunately it seldom is, comes very near to being the
greatest of modern tyrannies. My reason for noticing it
is that, though under these conditions the responsibility
of the mother or wife becomes different and much less
simple, it is by no means entirely over, as many young
people seem to me to imagine. We none of us wish for
one moment to return to the nurses of the type described
by Dickens, but I do think we ought all of us, in our homes
and with any influence we may have on our generation, to
guard against throwing ourselves entirely into the hands
of the doctors and nurses, with an absolute submission of
our intelligence—a submission which we should think
ridiculous and impossible in any of the other conditions
of life. Itis bad for them and bad for us. Such power
is too much. Such a neglect of our duties and such
complete dependence on others may have most disastrous
consequences on ourselves, and, still worse, may seriously
injure the lives of those we love. Nothing matters so
much, be it old style or new, as that sickness in the house,
end it ever so favourably, should hurt or lessen family
love ; for, as Thackeray says in one of his letters, ‘ Avmons
nous bien. It seems to me that is the only thing we can
carry away, and when we go let us have some who love
us wherever we are.’

Nurses have a very hard life, and almost all women
who work are apt to belong to the overworked portion of
the community. That they should combine in any way
that is possible, for their own advantage and for the
maintenance of their old age, is very much to be desired.
But the public should never for one moment forget that
nursing, which began in devotion and forgetfulness of self,
as a vocation, has now become, in the most acknowledged
sense of the word, a profession and an employment for

300 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

women, depriving them of the leisure and pleasure
belonging to their youth—that leisure and pleasure
which justified Scott’s description of woman as ‘un-
certain, coy, and hard to please,’ and the want of which
certainly also takes from them the right to consider
themselves, or even the power to be, ‘ ministering angels.’
What is done for duty and money can never be the same
offering as what is done for love and devotion. The
public only are to blame if they think a strong young
woman ceases to be a human being because she works
hard and wears a nurse’s dress. It is of distinct im-
portance that in the case of choosing a nurse for a
husband, brother, or son, a woman should feel the
responsibility of the situation, and not take the first nurse
that turns up at an institution. The selecting of a nurse
should most certainly not be left to chance. The nurse
should be suitable for the case from the point of view of
the family as well as that of the doctor. Why should we
expose two human beings under our charge to temptations
which we should not sanction under any of the other
circumstances of life? Convalescence ought to be a time
of rest both for mind and body, not a time that is need-
lessly prolonged for the sake of foolish and unworthy
flirtation, which is no more sanctioned by the higher
members of the profession than is flirtation between
a doctor and his patient. The accusations that just
lately have been showered on the nurses, they deserve,
it seems to me, no more than any other class of
young women who share our common human nature.
The blame rests with those who select the nurse—first
the matron of the hospital or institution, and then the
person who chooses her for the individual case.

The commonest of our national faults, and one which
affects all our health regulations, is surely that we
sanction the obvious causes of a situation, and then are

HEALTH 301

surprised and grumble at their inevitable consequences.
It is not so much a question of morality as of mere
worldly common-sense and expediency. The laws which
should regulate such a new departure are not yet formed—
nursing, according to our modern ideas, being scarcely a
quarter of a century old. As long as the world lasts and
women are women, give them certain circumstances and
a sufficient temptation, and nothing will keep them
straight. Some women, too, take to nursing because
early trouble has made other openings difficult for them.
Under those circumstances we meet the most dangerous
type of woman that exists; the world has turned against
her, and thereby caused her to become hard and bad, and
the enemy of society—the type that crushes, by all
the means in her power, any other woman who con-
sciously or unconsciously crosses the path of her conquest.
Few people seem to consider that the training of a nurse
is more hardening, and more likely to unsex a woman,
than the training of an actress. At any rate, itis im-
possible to go through it without becoming very much
better or very much worse than the ordinary woman. In
France they understand human nature better than we
do, and would never dream of allowing our system of
nursing. Nurses in Paris are, I believe, most difficult to
get. We want more regulations and more judicious
assistance from public opinion. The French want an
increased staff of nurses who are well conducted and not
too young, to supplement the devoted, high-minded, deeply
religious class of women who can alone join the Sister-
hoods, as they apparently are insufficient in number.
Time, the greatest adjuster of all human difficulties, will
settle these matters. What concerns us is that no turn
of fortune’s wheel should crush and injure ourselves or
those belonging to us; and what matters now is that
ordinary knowledge and common-sense on the subject of

302 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

health should be brought to bear by every woman
responsible in any way for the well-being of others, and
especially of the young. Public opinion, I am glad to
say, does not forgive a mother’s neglect of her children’s
physical condition ; and the condemnation is severe when
a boy, after all his work and passing his hard examina-
tions, is plucked in the medical examination for some
slight physical defect—it may be nothing worse than
neglected corns or a crooked toe—which with ordinary
care in childhood or a slight operation might have been
entirely cured. Is it stinginess, or is it idleness, or is it
ignorance, or is it mere selfishness and a dislike to
acknowledge delicacy in their own children, or a half-
conscientious repudiation of responsibility and a blind
trust in Providence, that makes so many parents allow
life-long misery and suffering to come upon their children
just for the want of a little care and study of the
ordinary rules of health, and of the watchful eye which is
given by every hunting man to his horse ?

One word more I must add about convalescence.
With the young and the healthy it is a time of hope and
even happiness, in spite of mourning over the lost muscles
and strength, and the irritating tyrannies of the sick-
room. But in long, chronic, hopeless ilmess modern
nursing, with all its real advantages, becomes an active
daily trial, only to be borne patiently from the same
feeling that makes all work and all trials bearable—
namely, for the time being, doing the disagreeable for the
sake of the ultimate good. It is our only method of
earning our daily bread by the sweat of our brow, the old
golden rule of life, which in all the forms it takes is still
the one that convinces us that life is worth living, if not
for ourselves, at any rate to continue our presence here for
the sake of those who dearly wish to keep us. And so
all the trials and fatigues of the three hours’ nurse’s rule

HEALTH 303

in the sick-room in the morning have to be gone through
as patiently and cheerfully as is possible. But he or she
can afterwards sink exhausted on the sofa or bed, and
can indeed say with the pride that belongs to each one of
us in our tiny sphere, ‘I, too, have not been idle—I, too,
have done my best for those who are dear to me.’ But
it is weary work, and for the very weak they can only
feel how very much happier it would be to be left alone
and lie still and unbothered, instead of feeling more tired
than after a hard day’s hunting.

For those who wish to learn, or those who are going
abroad or to live in out-of-the-way places, and for those
who do not care to have a doctor always in their
house, I will name a few books written for the public by
medical men and women of distinction and of great
experience, and who are in no sense of the word quacks.
The great difference, so far as I can see, between the
books of medical men and those of so-called quacks, is
that the latter have absolute faith in their remedies, and
use almost the identical old miraculous words, ‘ Wash
and be clean ’—and this really often answers—while the
books written by doctors employ a much more cautious
language. To an immense number of human beings the
narrow and forcible phraseology has great attractions, and
goes a long way in affecting the nerves and mind, which
are undoubted and powerful factors in all cures. Where
disease is advanced and real, is it not admitted by all
systems that alleviation, not cure, is all that is possible?
The simulation of disease is often merely the result of
shattered or over-stimulated nerves. I fancy the medical
books come near the truth when they suggest that an
immense number of remedies and different treatments
may all do good under different circumstances. In my
opinion the cause of a vast amount of the bad health of
the present day is owing to the number of drugs that

304 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

people take—partly, at first, by order of the doctor and
continued afterwards, and still more from the taking of
quack medicines. When a doctor comes to the house, he
should be given every chance, and obeyed in all he says ;
but when he is dismissed, his medicines should go with him,
and all amateur doctoring should be of the simplest kind—
abstinence first and foremost, and various applications of
hot and cold water. One of our great physicians two or
three years ago, in his opening address to his hospital pupils,
said that seventy per cent. of the patients in a great London
hospital (think what that means!) would not be there if
they were teetotalers and vegetarians ; and this statement
passed unnoticed in all the daily papers in which the
address was reported. If doctors could convince their —
patients of this, I fear their profession would be a less
lucrative one, and that the health of the community would
be far better—at any rate, fewer of the leisured moneyed
classes would have to go to German watering-places,
homceopathists, and quacks.

It is quite a latter-day thing for doctors to talk in this
way about abstinence in health, but I shall never forget
what I owe to an old-fashioned country doctor, who told
me, whenever my children were ailing, to knock off at
once all animal food—meat, soup, and even milk. Later
in my life, I remember it was a favourite saying of Sir
William Gull’s: ‘ First get your patient hungry, and then
keep him so.’

The first book I recommend is called ‘On Slight
Ailments and on Treating Disease,’ by Lionel Beale.
This is a collection of lectures delivered at King’s College,
London, on the principles and practice of medicine. If
the book has a fault, it is that it is too comprehensive and
medical to suit the palate of the ordinary amateur. The
next contains the wisdom of the serpent and the sim-

HEALTH 305

plicity of the dove, and has the attractive title of ‘A Plea
for a Simpler Life,’ by George S. Keith, a well-known
Edinburgh doctor. This little book is short, clear, and
wise.

‘Food and Feeding,’ by Sir Henry Thompson. This
is a much-to-be-commended and really instructive book.
It goes into first principles, both of health and of the
chemical properties of food, and would be far more useful
to take to wild places or distant lands than any ordinary
cookery book. The commonplace of living is taken up
and handled for our benefit by a man of great talent and
learning. Everybody who has not got it, ought to buy it
—and study it, too.

The next is what, I suppose, would be called a quack-
book, and its name is ‘ Power through Repose,’ by Annie
Payson Call. It is an admirable, healthy, and useful
little book, particularly suited to the straining, and striving,
and overworking oftheage. It will be found most helpful
to the sleepless and the nervous, if they will study it and
give attention to its directions.

Last, but by no means least in its great utility, comes
‘A Handbook of Nursing for the Home and the Hos-
p tal,’ by Catherine Jane Wood. Miss Wood was for
years lady-superintendent of the Great Ormond Street
Hospital for Children, so she speaks with great authority.
Though it has reached the eleventh edition, it is astonish-
ing how many people have never heard of this first-rate
little handbook. It is condensed and yet detailed, it
is medical and yet simple and intelligible to a degree
which brings it within the comprehension of anyone. In
fact, I believe it to be the best book on nursing ever
written.

This little poem of Mr. Lionel Tennyson’s has, ]
believe, never been published; a friend gave it to me
, x

306 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

some years ago. I think it will appeal to many people as
it does to me :—

SYMPATHY

In this sad world, where mortals must
Be almost strangers,
Should we not turn to those we trust
To save us from our dangers ?
Then whisper in my ear again,
And this believe—
That aught which gives thy dear heart pain
Makes my heart grieve.

God wills that we have sorrow here,
And we will share it;

Whisper thy sorrow in my ear,
That I may also bear it.

If anywhere our trouble seems
To find an end,

Tis in the fairyland of dreams
Or with a friend.

3°97

AMATEUR ARTISTS

Amateurs—Want of occupation—Work amongst the poor—Musie
and drawing—Ruskin’s teaching—Technical skill—Natural and
acquired talent —Leaving home-——Water-colours versus oils.

Drawina and gardening are so intimately connected, and
being able to draw is such a preparation to the study of
gardening, that I have thought it worth while to bring in
here part of an article I wrote last year (1896) in the
‘National Review.’ In it I tried to set down some
observations on the subject of amateur art, having myself
had a life-long experience of it, of its great joys and its
many heart-burning disappointments and difficulties.
The increased taste for art and many other causes have
tended during the last twenty years to diminish the
number of those who draw for pleasure alone; whereas
public opinion and family pride, which once thought
starvation and beggary more honourable than work, now
no longer prevent our sons and daughters from earning
their bread as professional artists, musicians, or actors.
But it is not to these that I wish to allude. They have
found their vocation ; their courseis clear. Iam speaking
of the amateur proper, common enough a generation ago.
Nine-tenths of the amateurs are women, and it is upon
amateur art as an occupation for women that I wish to
insist. I am more and more convinced of the importance
to a girl of having an interest in life over and above her

affections and the trifling domesti duties that may come
X 2

308 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

in her way. If not, the time will come when, either as a
young married woman whose husband’s duties keep him
absent during most of the day, or as one whom accident
or choice has withheld from marriage, she will feel that
déswuvrement which drives so many women into frivolity
and folly, and sinks many more into ill-health and fretful
misery.

Tennyson bade Lady Clara Vere de Vere employ, in
what is now called philanthropy, the hours which might
drag wearily with her if she desisted from playing with
hearts. He recognised the fact that women who—through
no fault of their own, be it remembered—are born to no
very distinct duties, must have some occupation to fill
their minds and lives, or they will infallibly take to some
form of mischief. No doubt it is a gain that so much
should now be almost universally acknowledged. The
question of finding wise and fruitful work for the many
women, married or single, who have time and heart and
brain insufficiently occupied, still remains, whether we
like it or not, one of the burning questions of the day.
But the experience of the last twenty years has shown—Il
think, beyond dispute—that the late Laureate’s solution of
the difficulty is not a satisfactory one. Far be it from me
to cast discredit on the noble work which has been done,
and is still being done, among the poor of London and
other great cities; but in the opinion of all who have
thought on the subject, and, still more, of those who have
had practical experience of it, there is no channel from
which the activity of amateurs should be more carefully
diverted. The long apprenticeship, the severe application,
the entire self-devotion, to the exclusion of other occupa-
tions, which distinguish the professional from the amateur,
should be required before people are allowed to deal
with burning social questions, to tamper with the lives
of others, to risk pauperising individuals by indis-

AMATEUR ARTISTS 309

criminate charity, or, as is continually the case with
visiting in hospitals, to stir up unintentionally class
hatred by injudicious interference. Itis a growing opinion
that almost all such work requires, not zeal and intel-
ligence alone, but the whole time and individual energies
of those who devote themselves to it. Not all who can
give these are endowed by Nature and education with the
qualities which render them capable of being useful in
that line.

Five-and-twenty or thirty years ago, serious education
for women of the leisured class was hardly thought of.
The teaching of domestic economy, as well as all real
mental training, was neglected in favour of superficial
accomplishments. It was then far more common to meet
with the young lady whose esthetic impulses found vent
in flower-painting and landscape art than it is in the
present day. Mr. Ruskin’s teaching, the constant read-
ing of art criticism—above all, the more thorough ground-
ing now insisted upon in every branch of education—has
opened girls’ minds and increased their diffidence. They
have afar more widespread and intelligent interest in art,
but the actual number of amateur workers has greatly
diminished. These influences, by educating the taste
and increasing the knowledge of a large section of the
public, have combined to deter those who in former days
would have been only too ready to dabble in water-
colours. They are now withheld by an exaggerated
sense of the difficulties of the undertaking, or by a
consciousness that they lack time or opportunity to learn
to any purpose. Unfortunately this diffidence principally
affects the more sensitive and poetical of the young
people. For the sake of these, and just because en-
couragement is needed, I wish to point some of the
reasons why their courage should not fail. It seems to
me that there is much profit and enjoyment to be derived

310 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

from an occupation which brings into the home none of
the irritation so often produced by the piano or violin.
Music, no doubt, not merely in cases of real talent, but also
when only ordinary proficiency is attained, is the most
sociable of hobbies. It brings other musical people to
the house, and gives far more pleasure to those among
non-performers who like it, if more annoyance to those
who do not, than drawing. Many natures, however,
have the temperament of genius without its creative
power, and I doubt very much whether music gives the
same vent and the same satisfaction to these which even
a slight taste for drawing affords when cultivated. There
is a rare delight in the exercise of creative power, however
limited ; and this pleasure is given by drawing, even at its
most elementary stage. What was a piece of white
paper has something on it, and you have put it there. It
has also the great advantage that it can be practised at all
times and in all places—when travelling, at the dull sea-
side lodging, in town, or at the empty or sad backwater
times of life that everyone experiences. Its danger to
each individual is the same as that of all other pleasures
and occupations to which we give our hearts, it en-
courages selfish absorption. But everything has its
reverse side; and I am sure that, to the person with no
ear for music and no taste for independent study in
science or literature, drawing may prove a lasting delight,
a source of peace and content, a stimulus to moral and
intellectual growth. The occupation, to those who have
learnt to love it, causes time to fly on the wings of
pleasure ; it adds new interest and zest to life, opening
the eyes to a whole world of beauty which has hitherto
lain unknown or unnoticed. Balzac said: ‘The genius
of observation is almost the whole of human genius.’ If
this aphorism is not comprehensively true, it serves at
least to prove how life is enriched even for stupid by

AMATEUR ARTISTS 3I1

cultivating observation; and yet how many go through
life without it! As one branch of ‘ the genius of observa-
tion,’ the artistic pursuit educates the taste in the highest
sense of that:much-abused word. It increases immensely
the appreciation of works of art, both ancient and
modern. It often leads to a reasoned study of the
history of art, its interesting evolution, and its bio-
graphical and critical literature. Besides these, to come
to more homely matters and the most feminine side of
a woman’s life—namely, the management of her dress and
the decoration of her house—the knowledge of colour and
the study of form will make both these more beautiful
and less commonplace. They will also give her assurance
to free herself from the often tasteless tyrannies of the
dressmaker and the upholsterer.

Granting the wish, how is an ambitious girl to set
about learning to draw? She may do a great deal by
herself ; but in the initial stage, help is very desirable—not
in childhood, but after seventeen. Much waste of time
and energy is prevented by a few timely lessons, even
though solitary effort with the aid of books, especially
such a book as Ruskin’s ‘Hlements of Drawing,’ might
in the end conquer the difficulties. The old accusation
against amateur work, of showiness and superficiality, was
certainly well deserved in the days when the one idea
was to send for a fashionable drawing-master, who taught
his pupils to make feeble copies of his own drawings—
which copies he most unfairly touched up, to make the
results more satisfactory to parents or guardians. Of
course, this system was deplorable ; but those evils have
disappeared, to give place to their exact contraries in
modern art teaching. The dryness of the grounding, the
difficulties of getting through the earlier stages of an art
school, often discourage the student who cannot give up
all her time and energies to conquering these initial

312. POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

difficulties, which are made so great. The modern girl
who works in a studio now spends months, even years,
drawing rough charcoal studies of the nude. This, of
course, is essential for a genius who is seriously going in
for figure-painting. But to the ordinary amateur it brings
about the desired results no more than the knowledge of
the alphabet would give the mental development to be
derived from literature. The upshot of all this serious
study is that, as the girl’s life gets fuller, her drawing can
no longer be the accompaniment to her life, and she gives
it up in despair.

It may be thought well that these half-hearted workers
should be turned back at the outset. This would be right,
if the drawing of amateurs were to be measured only by
its results. But the least of its many advantages to them
is the production of a mere drawing, especially as this is
always so inferior to what they hoped to produce. The
really important ends in view are the influence on
character, the employment of time, and the attainment
of innocent happiness, which are all of much greater
importance than mere technical skill. I do not deny the
usefulness of schools, nor the impetus they may have
given to our national art. But their system has its
faults, even as regards the training of professionals or of
those amateurs whose great talent may carry them quickly
through the drudgery these schools impose. It seems to
me that there is room now for well-qualified teachers of
water-colour sketching, without any revival of the old-
fashioned and very superficial system of years gone by.
A teacher should himself have been grounded in freehand,
design, and perspective. He should be able to guide the
pupil through these early stages into the happier plains
of still-life or landscape painting from Nature more
quickly and with less tedium than could be done in the
school or the studio. I know that with patient work a

AMATEUR ARTISTS 313

girl may do all this alone. I do not want anything to be
expected of the instruction I recommend beyond the
smoothing of the path. It will avail nothing unless it
teaches her to depend in the long run on herself, her own
industry, and her own exertions. A certain amount of
technical skill in the use of pencil and colours, certain
rules of composition, the knowledge of how to stretch
paper, prepare materials, and set about a drawing, may
be imparted by a teacher. This saves all the time and
vexation it would cost to learn these things alone. But
though we may learn from another to some extent how
to think, no one in the world can tell us what to think.
The faculty and the will must be supplied by the learner.
No teacher can instil them, though he may remove
obstacles and help to quicken the growth of the powers
within. Unless a girl have it in her to feel, in however
small a degree, the beauty of the light summer cirrus
which floats above her head, or to know how to look with
joy into the glowing heart of a flower, no books and no
teaching will ever give it to her. Without an inborn love
of natural beauty, no one will ever care enough about
drawing to persevere ; with it, no one can fail to make
progress, however slight. Beginners should, I think,
never destroy their drawings; they should be kept, not
in conceit, but as a proof of progress. LEvery drawing,
however, should be made with a definite purpose, and it
is best—as a rule—for each one to draw what she most
fancies; the result will then probably not only be more
satisfactory, but more original. But to begin sketch after
sketch and study after study, and then give them up or
throw them away half finished, is a form of self-
indulgence most fatal to progress. It debilitates the
intelligence and weakens the moral fibre, which alone
conquers difficulties.

On the other hand, it is not uncommon for un-

314 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

fortunately conscientious persons to fall into the contrary
error. They may perseveringly linger over unattractive
studies, merely because they offer certain difficulties, on
the ascetic principle of hair shirts and peas in our shoes.
To these I would say: ‘If you were pursuing a country
path and turned back at the first stile, instead of climbing
over it, you would never reach your destination. If, on
the other hand, you decided that because climbing a stile
is a disagreeable and tedious process, therefore it must
be good for us, and you promptly climbed back again,
you would delay your progress to no purpose. There
is a distinction between overcoming obstacles which
obstruct our onward and upward path, and idly
creating difficulties for the fancied glory of conquering
them.’

Progress depends on a general brain power, and is not
so surely proportioned to effort as the sanguine and the
clever are apt to believe. It is unfortunately quite
possible for amateurs to spend a great deal of time over
their drawings, to take a real interest in the pursuit, and
yet to achieve but small, very small, results. Such
failure is sometimes due to circumstances and to pre-
ventable causes. The most common of them is the
constant interruption to which all home work, and
especially women’s work, is liable. The curious selfish-
ness in this matter of even the best of mothers often
immensely surprises me. It is hard indeed to convince
parents and relations that women have any right to the
undisturbed use of any portion of their time. I think a
great deal of that desire, so commonly displayed now, for
girls to leave their homes and undertake some work, has
been brought about by this want of realisation of the
necessity of quiet, if work is to be done. These inter-
ruptions, so often quite needless, not only cause an
immense loss of time, but are actually a great hindrance

AMATEUR ARTISTS 315

to improvement in art. It is always difficult, often
almost impossible, to take up work again in the same
spirit in which it was laid down. The threads are broken,
and cannot be joined together again, to say nothing of
the intense annoyance of finding the subject moved, the
colour-box upset, or the water spilt. The power of
working, in spite of such drawbacks, can be cultivated,
especially if it is possible to set up a table either in the
pupil’s own bed-room, or if some disused room can be
handed over to her, where no one touches her things but
herself.

As a compromise to the undesirableness of leaving
home altogether, these difficulties may very well be met,
if one or two amateurs club together and hire a suitable
room elsewhere outside their own homes. It might also
be possible to get the loan of a room in the house of a
young married woman who is the mistress of her own
time, where all materials remain undisturbed, and where
the surroundings are not annoying or distracting. Un-
papered walls, simply whitewashed, a plain deal table or
two, a few pieces of cheap pottery, are to be procured
at the cost of a very few shillings, a bunch of leaves
or a handful of Poppies or Marigolds giving the touch of
colour which is dear to the soul of the most incipient
artist. Besides the advantage to the work of quiet and
seclusion, it is to many women both a rest and a stimulus
to go out to their work daily, as men do.

Another point which I would beg may be remembered
is that water-colours are far more suitable to amateurs than
oils. The use of oils encourages all those defects of
slovenliness and carelessness, speed and showy display,
to which amateurs are liable. A bad sketch or study in
oils is far more distressing than a bad sketch in water-
colours. The materials of water-colours are more
manageable and convenient for those who have neither

316 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

much space nor much time at their command—that is to
say, for the majority of amateurs. Moreover, water-colour
painting is our national art, and it perhaps can never be
fully understood or appreciated save by those who have
some experience of its great technical difficulties.

37

DAUGHTERS

School-girls—Ignorance of parents—The confidence of children must
be gained—The way to do it—Drawbacks of nurseries and school-
rooms— Over - education — Show - training—Delicate girls—A
woman’s vocation—Superficial teaching—Children’s tempers—
Modern girls—Herbert Spencer and education—J. P. Richter—
Liberty and independence—Serious studies—What young girls
should read—Parents and children—Friendships—Girls’ allow-
ances—Dress—Professions—Strong feelings— Management of
house and family—Harly rising—Life in society.

Muc# that I have said with regard to boys applies to
girls too, but I would only recommend sending girls to
school in very peculiar and exceptional circumstances. I
used to think that, for town girls, the high-schools afforded
the best method of education. I now think that the pupils
there are worked much too hard. What is really wanted
for women is a mental training, the creation of a habit
of mind, rather than technical knowledge of any kind.
Remember, such experience as I have of girls is entirely
limited tothe leisured classes—those who, by an unwritten
law, are virtually brought up to amuse themselves first,
and to marry afterwards. I know nothing of the wants
and requirements of those girls who are aware, from the
beginning, that they will actually have to earn their
bread and decide on a walk in life, as a boy does. One
merit of school is that if the father and mother have
neglected the health of their children, as is too frequently
the case, from idleness, ignorance, or prejudice, abnormal

318 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

bad health is probably revealed by the school-life ; and if
a boy cannot do as others do, some one has to discover
the reason why. Hundreds of mothers will own how
much healthier, for some cause or another, their boys are
at school than they were at home. This limelight of
eriticism—which, I think, is thrown on the facts of the
case at school—is, alas! never turned upon the unfortu-
nate schoolroom girl. She is inclined to think that others
suffer as muchas she does; or, at any rate, she would far
rather endure almost anything in silence than make com-
plaints which often cause the mother and the governess to
accuse her of being fanciful, idle, or self-indulgent. It is
a problem, never solved through a woman’s life, when it
is best to disregard her ailments or to attend to them.
One of the most startling things I know is the
ignorance of parents as to what is going on in the lives
and minds of their children. I am thankful to say that
in all my long experience I have only known one or two
really bad, indifferent, selfish mothers; but even the
kindest mothers, and those who devote most time and
thought to the welfare of their children, are sometimes
quite blind to the discomforts, the sorrows, and even the
tragedies that are being endured in silence under their
very eyes. I refer rather to the childhood of girls than
of boys, for these last are almost always sent to school
when quite young, and from that moment their indepen-
dence and consequent outspokenness when at home are
generally assured. But numbers of women have
mentioned to me the troubles of their childhood, which
never were suspected by their mothers, and which they
themselves never dreamt of revealing till they were quite
grown up, sometimes not till they were married and out
of the home altogether. Every young mother says and
thinks, ‘This sort of thing shall never happen with my
children ;’ but it does happen, again and again. The cause

DAUGHTERS 319

lies, not in the want of kindness, but in a want of
intelligence—the intelligence to put one’s self on the
level of a child and to see its life from its point of view.
This faculty is so rarely displayed that it is safe to con-
clude it rarely exists. It is a gift of no mean order, for,
however generous our intentions may be, it is an exceed-
ingly difficult task to deal out justice. I donot deny that
there is a tendency in most people to exaggerate the
troubles of their childhood, which must be taken into
account ; but how many a mother thinks that her darlings
are all right, and so bright and happy, with every reason
to be so, when, in fact, they are eating their little hearts
out in misery and sorrow! The capability for suffering
in some children is quite extraordinary, and _ trivial
things assume colossal proportions in their small lives.
When girls are brought up under teachers and
governesses, as is generally the case in the houses of the
wealthy, the difficulty is increased. To complain of these
authorities to the still higher but more distant authority of
a parent is a very doubtful means of redress, and, in case
of failure, the risk of punishment or of an aggravation of
the evil—real or imagined—which gave rise to the com-
plaint, is too terrible to be faced. Almost all girls, under
such circumstances, are afraid to speak the truth. In my
own case I was not afraid of my mother, but this made
the keeping of governesses very difficult. I had eight of
them before I was fifteen, and I disliked all but one. I
expect, though doubtless I was a ‘horrid child,’ that, as
regards the governesses, I was pretty clear-judging. Of
course, the governesses of to-day have a very different
idea of their duties from what was usual fifty years ago.
Special training is given to those who undertake to teach
the young, and this is now recognised as an art in itself,
independently of having knowledge and information to
impart. Such a change has greatly helped to raise

320 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

the vocation of a governess to a far more competent
standard,

How to gain the confidence of children—that is the
eternal problem, Broadly speaking, I believe no one
ever helps human nature, excep by assuming it to be
higher and nobler than it is. It is humiliating to be
deceived, but it is better to be so a thousand times than
once to underrate a good quality or a good impulse, or
to give up hope and trust. It is difficult to see and to be
with our children enough, and the difficulty is nob solved
even by the mother teaching the children their lessons
herself. Anybody, [ am inclined to believe, does this
better than she can. No morning occupation or after-
noon Glass together does away with the necessity for
devoting to the children the all-important interval between
five o'clock and bed-time, which it is hard for some
mothers to give to them. In my opinion a wise
mother should give up her friends rather than her child-
ron at that hour. If the father can be at home then,
too, so much the better. At that time children are a
little tired and want amusing. I think this is far better
done by talking to them, and by playing the piano and
singing to them, or by teaching them how to play by
themselves some kind of semi-active game, than by
obliging them to employ themselves quietly, or by reading
jo them. If they attend and listen, it is too tiring for
them; and if they do not, it is a thorough waste of time.
A great many children, if encouraged to speak openly,
will tell you that they do not care about being read to,
unless it is some child’s story which they almost know
by heart, and which is read to them over and over again,
as the nurses do, Of course, [ am now only speaking of
children under eleven or twelve years old.

A great drawback, not only to the children but to the
parents, in what is called upper-class life, is that the

DAUGHTERS 421
duties of that life necessitate the consigning of their
children for a grout part of the day to the care of others,
If there were no nurseries and no schoolrooms, there
would be no necessity for w ‘children’s hour’ at all, for
the children would share life with their mother from the
first, and she would derive her pleasure from taking care
of them. <A serious difficulty for the mother is that she
has to compete with the devotion and constant attention
of the nurses and governesses, It ia thia which often
gives children the idea that it is only when with their
mother that they are dull, neglected, and expected to
occupy and amuse themselves; and this isa certainly an
undesirable impression to produce at an age when im-
pressions are strong and likely to be lasting. Ivery case
must be judged individually, and a woran must put to
herself how far it is necessary that she should separate
her life from the life of her children, As a matter of
fact, ib ought to depend on what is her husband's social
position, or on what is his idea of her duties to him, In
the cases where it is most difficult for a woman to see
much of her children—let us say, in the large houses of
the rich in town or country —it is better that children and
governess should be turned into the hosts, and that the
parents and guests should go to them for tea, rather than
the usual arrangement of the children being brought into
the drawing-room,

In speaking to young mothers who are inclined to be
over-anxious, and who begin worrying themselves over
details of their children’s education, I always try and
remind them that no education really affects the character
very much before about twelve years old, so long as
atiention is paid in every way to their health and to the
kind of nurses who are about them, As one gets old,
one remembers the numbers of children that were brought
up in totally different ways; and yet, roughly speaking,

¥

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in spite of either spoiling or neglect, over- or under-
educating, how few belonging to the same class are really
much better or much worse than their fellows—in fact,
what an ordinary level they attain! What marked
differences do exist are due much more to individuality
of character than to the various trainings they have
undergone. Even the most earnest mothers have some-
times to own that the children of parents who took no
pains at all turn out quite as well as their own. I refer,
of course, to what is called intellectual education, and not
to the physical. I once more come back to saying that
neglect of health and over-stimulating of the brain before
the age, say, of fifteen in excitable, clever children are the
only two things that really might work for evil on the
future. No true opinion about the character of a child
can be arrived at till the age of sixteen or seventeen,
though guesses more or less correct may be made much
earlier. The education of children depends so immensely
on the gradual growth and development of the mother
herself, and on the influences through which she passes.
Those mothers most admired in their devotion to their
babies have generally turned out, according to my ob-
servation, the least satisfactory, and the least able to
control and guide their children in later life. This is due,
of course, to temperament and to the woman being one
who is satisfied with the nursery, who never looks forward,
who ceases to cultivate herself after marriage, and who,
above all, does not keep pace with the generation which
lies between herself and her children, this generation
being the only one that will interpret her children to
herself when they are grown up. A mother should be
on her guard about changing her methods because some
one else’s children seem more or better instructed or
prettier-mannered than her own. To be actively in-
fluenced as regards your children by the comments of

DAUGHTERS 323

others is, I think, a mistake. Take all the advice you
can get all round, but never act upon it till you have
thoroughly digested it and seriously considered whether
it agrees with your general plan or not. Nothing is so
easy a8 to train children like monkeys or dancing dogs ;
nothing so difficult as to make that sort of show-training
of the smallest use in the far more important factor of
character development. Children who are brought up
naturally must often be naughty and disagreeable in
family meetings, which mortifies the mother, but is only
an experience gained to the child. What hurts us is
not so much that those we love should say what they
think, as that they think what they say.

I remember a boy who was once foolishly talked to
by his mother for not being so clever or so industrious
as the little A.’s, some neighbour’s children. The boy
instantly answered, ‘ But, mother, are you and father the
least like Mr. and Mrs. A.?’ There is a good deal in the
answer; the first essential is to be ourselves, our best
selves certainly, but no imitation of others, and never
wishing to be so as regards our children. Even when
we strive to be original, we often only end in being affected.
Mr. Ruskin says: ‘That virtue of originality that men
strive after is not newness, as they vainly think (there is
nothing new); it is only genuineness.’ Every form of
training has its merits and its defects, both in the present
and the future.

On looking back myself, I can honestly say that what
was least usual, least conventional, and most criticised
by others is what I regret the least in the education of
my Own sons.

To continue what I have to say about little girls; the
moment they are what doctors call delicate—that is to
say, have any constitutional or hereditary weakness—still
more, if there is any organic disease—no sacrifice on the

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324 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

part of parents is, to my mind, too great, and no neglect
of education is to be thought of compared to improving
the child’s state of health. Nothing is so likely to do
that as high country air or sea air for a great part of the
year. Girls may grow up healthy and strong, though they
live in London nearly all the year round, but it is un-
doubtedly a risk which should never slip out of the
mother’s mind, especially if the remaining in London
is associated with any selfish purposes of her own, either
as regards pleasure or expense. In France the teaching
of Rousseau still unconsciously influences society, and
fashionable doctors insist on delicate children being sent
right away into the country, to lead almost peasants’
lives. This plan I never can feel is kind or even wise,
though it ensures the advantages of no excitement,
country air, and liberty to run in and out—so necessary
an element in child-life. But it rather resembles turning
thin-skinned stable-horses, with their tails cut, into a
green field full of sunshine and flies. Delicately born
and nurtured children must suffer from the rough life.

In England, on the contrary, I think we often sacri-
fice our girls’ good to the selfish pleasure of keeping
them with us, making the girls’ education the excuse.
Broadly speaking, it is far better for a woman to be
strong, healthy, intelligent, observant, and, above all,
adaptable to the changes and chances of this mortal life,
than that she should be well educated. Intelligence is
no doubt inborn, a gift that belongs to no class; bad
health may injure it, but no higher education will ever
give it to those who are without it, nor will it ever make
what I consider the ideal woman.

The longer I live, the more I believe that a woman’s
education, if she has not to learn some special trade,
should be awakening and yet superficial, teaching her to
stand alone and yet not destroying her adaptability for a

DAUGHTERS 325

woman’s highest vocation, if she can get it—which is, of
course, marriage and motherhood.

The word superficial, its dictionary synonym being
shallow, is one that will, I fear, be a rock of offence to
many ; and yet I know none better. Mr. Morley, in his
lecture on Popular Culture, expresses what I mean when
he says: ‘What I should like to see would be an
attempt to compress the whole history of England into
a dozen or fifteen lectures—lectures, of course, accom-
panied by catechetical instruction. I am not so extrava-
gant as to dream that a short general course of this kind
would be enough to go over so many of the details as
it is desirable for men to know; but details in popular
instruction, though not in the study of the writer or the
University professor, are only important after you have
imparted the largest general truths. It is the general
truths that stir a life-like curiosity as to the particulars
which they are the means of lighting up.’ That is what
I mean by superficial teaching, something which gives a
desire in the child or the girl to learn. Instead of boring
her to death with what teachers consider the roots and
foundations of knowledge, and which no child can under-
stand or appreciate, I would strive to arouse curiosity,
and trust that she would go deeper herself when the
desire for knowledge came.

Mr. Morley goes on to say: ‘Another point is worth
thinking of, besides the reduction of history for your
purposes to a comprehensive body of rightly grouped
generalities. Dr. Arnold says somewhere that he wishes
the public might have a history of our present state of
society traced backwards. It is the present that really
interests us ; it is the present that we seek to understand
and to explain. I do not in the least want to know what
happened in the past, except as it enables me to see my
way more clearly through what is happening to-day. I

326 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

want to know what men thought and did in the thir-
teenth century, not out of any dilettante or idle anti-
quarian’s curiosity, but because the thirteenth century is
at the root of what men think and do in the nineteenth.
Well, then, it cannot be a bad educational rule to start
from what is most interesting, and to work from that
outwards and backwards.’

I mourned a good deal in my own youth over the fact
that I had been very badly educated, and this certainly
stimulated me, at a period when time was wanting, to do
what I could for myself. But on looking back over the
last thirty-five years—and speaking again, of course, only
from my own very limited experience—I should say that
all the women who have done best in life among my
married kinsfolk and acquaintances were those who were
most superficially and casually educated. Two women
are known to me who have filled the highest positions
admirably, who have been crowns of glory to their
husbands, and have been universally recognised as
women of the noblest type by all who have come in
contact with them in many parts of the world. As
children they were by no means exceptionally clever,
and their regular governess education ceased at the
extremely early age of twelve. They were left, with
occasional masters, to learn what they could and improve
themselves; but they had from their earliest years the
great advantage of constantly moving about. Some-
times town, sometimes country, and often abroad, they
were never in one place for six months at a time. Many
parenis are so afraid of making these breaks in the
continuity of their girls’ education, and—as is only
human—the governesses and teachers are always against
it. One of the disadvantages of classes and competitive
education is that ambitious children themselves often
object to their studies being broken into. But all the

DAUGHTERS 327

experience of moving about, the little hardships and
privations that come even in our modern luxurious
travelling, are an immense advantage and training to
children, revealing their individual characters to their
mother as no home life ever can. The impressions
gained through the eyes and ears are incomparably mor
lasting and real than any information learnt from books.

Bad temper in children is a thing that, in my opinion,
ought always to be treated with the utmost kindness,
- gentleness, tenderness, and consideration. It is generally
a matter of health and nerves, and often may be, in some
mysterious way, inherited from the mother’s irritability
during her pregnancy, which is caused very frequently
by a feeling of dislike at having a child at all. Surely,
then, this demands our utmost tenderness. I think that,
in a family, the children with good and even tempers
ought to be talked to in a way to make them understand
that, if they tease and annoy the child with the hot
temper, they are quite as much to blame as the irritable
ones themselves. The even-tempered child generally
means the indifferent one, and this in itself is an irrita-
tion to one who is excitable and highly strung.
Thwarting and contradicting only do harm ; love, tender-
ness, gentleness, and great attention to health may do
good. In short, the true situation is revealed to us
by the old Persian philosopher’s prayer :—‘O God! be
merciful to the wicked. To the good Thou hast already
been sufficiently merciful in making them good.’

In my youth, and still more before my time, girls
were brought up to think that marriage was their one
and only chance in life, and that, if they did not marry
quite young, they would never marry at all. Now they
know much more about the difficulties and dangers of
life, and pride themselves on not thinking about marriage.
This seems to me a mistake; they ought to think of

328) « POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

if very seriously and from every point of view, so that
thoy should be able and ready to seize on the practical
solution when the difficulty arises, Marriage should nob
be a woman's only profession, but it should be her best
wnd highest hope. Every girl should try and make
horsell worthy of it both in body and mind, and this
atbitude will not make a girl grow into a less sensible old
maid if she has to be one, Gatliani asked Madame
d'Mpinay, the writer of the famous ‘Mémoires’ in the
last contury, and the friend of Rousseau, what were her
views of woman's education, This is her reply: Vous
vouloy savoir do moi ce qu'une femme doit étudier? Sa
langue, afin quelle puisse parlor et derive correctement,
Lia podsie, si elle y a du ponchant; on tout elle doit
cultiver toujours son imagination, car le vrai mérite des
fommeos ob do leur société consiste en ce qu'elles sont
moing facticos, moins gitées, moins déloignédes de la
nature of par cela plus aimables; en fait de morale elles
doivent étudior beaucoup les hommes et jamais les
fommes, ollos doivent connaitre et étudier tous los ridi-
culos dos hommes et jamais coux des femmes.’

In the days long ago, when my children were
children, and, as is apt to be the case when one is sur-
rounded with a small growing-up family, half the popu-
lation of the world seemed to me to be children, my
thoughts wore so centred on the subject that nothing
olso appeared to mo of any great importance. At that
time two books gave mo much comfort, support, and
instruction, One was ‘Hdueation : Intellectual, Moral,
and Physical,’ by Herbert Spencer. This book, now so
much read and so widely known, requires no recom-
mondation from anyone, but I do wish to say that every
fathor and mother should read it—not once, but again and
again, Some will disagree with one part and some with
wnobthor, but I defy anybody to read it without a certain

DAUGHTERS 329

clearing of the head and opening of the mind, most essen-
tial to those who have the heavy responsibility of training
the young. If there is one thing above all others that
repeats its faults ad nauseam and is blindly conservative,
it is the management of children in the nursery and
schoolroom. Mr. Herbert Spencer’s book has fortunately
now reached a very cheap edition. It is a book created
by the hand of genius, and not the result of personal
experience. JI humbly bow to it in grateful thanks for
all the good I derived from its perusal.

The second book is called ‘ Levana, or The Doctrine
of Education,’ by Jean Paul Frederick Richter, and is
only accessible to me through the translation into
English. It is a book full of thought and wisdom, and it
speaks of prosaic thingsin a poetic manner ; and though
the opening chapters apply to both sexes, it refers rather
to the training of daughters than of sons, as being the
first and most important business of a mother. I can
strongly recommend its perusal ; at the same time a good
deal of it is, of course, out of date. It is written by a
German, and entirely from a man’s point of view. The
book is full of love and tenderness, and may perhaps be
thought very high-flown and old-fashioned in these days.
This does not matter; it speaks of the undying facts of
Nature, which will last as long as the world does. I
cannot resist copying here one passage, which I believe
will come home tenderly to every mother who is about
to give away in marriage a loved young daughter :—

‘Certainly a wisely and purely educated maiden is so
poetic a flower of the dull world, that the sight of this
glorious blossom hanging, some years after the honey-
moon, with yellow faded leaves in unwatered beds, must
grieve any man who beholds it with a poet’s eye; and
who must, consequently, in sorrow over the common
usefulness and servitude of the merely human life, over

330 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

the difference between the virgin and the matron, utter
the deadliest wishes ; yes, I say, he would rather send
the virgin with her wreath of rosebuds, her tenderness,
her ignorance of the sufferings of life, her dream-pictures
of a holy Eden, into the graveyard of earth, which is
God’s field, than into the waste places of life. Yet do it
not, O poet! The virgin becomes a mother, and gives
birth to the youth and the Eden which have fled from
her; and to the mother herself they return, and fairer
than before: and so let it be as it is.’

We have of late been going through a transition stage
on the question of giving liberty and independence to
young women. The most enlightened mothers, during the
last twenty years, in their anxiety to be in touch with the
times, have perhaps given their girls too great liberty when
too young, and when the girls have grown older, from fear
perhaps of what people might say, they have made the
fatal mistake of trying to tighten the reins. Let parents
and even young husbands realise that liberty once given
can never be withdrawn from individuals, any more than
from nations, without quarrels and trouble. The liberty
of women within certain limits must grow, and society
will adapt itself to it. The good and the bad will go on
as they have always done, uninfluenced by the swing of
the pendulum or the fiats of fashion. One generation
shows the shoulder and hides the arm, the other covers
up the shoulder and displays the arm. In my mother’s
youth it was thought fast to valse, in my youth it was
thought fast to sit out with a partner after dancing, and
now girls valse and sit out and ride bicycles, and none of
these things make or unmake good women.

I should say seventeen or eighteen was quite young
enough for a girl to begin serious study, if she is inclined
that way. In childhood attend to the grace and beauty
of her body, let her know her own language well, teach

DAUGHTERS 331

her music (to discover if she has a taste for it, that can be
developed) and foreign languages, for they cannot be learnt
later, and are of great use to women in many positions
in life. If she shows any taste for drawing, encourage it
in all ways, giving her time in which to do it, but no
serious lessons till she is much older. The drudgery of
early teaching often destroys any taste the child may
have. Pay great attention to handwriting; a good and
cultivated handwriting is quite easy to acquire young,
and is a continual advantage to a woman through life.

Another thing that mothers should teach their children,
and of which they should ever remind their young men
and women as they grow older, is the extreme importance
of prompt note-answering. The habit of writing notes
and letters, which is now going somewhat out of fashion,
is certainly of great assistance in helping us to obey the
golden rule never to turn a friend into an enemy by mere
carelessness or idleness, for want of a little trouble or of
the explanation which, if neglected, often changes the
whole character of the situation into one that is hard and
difficult, and even in some cases irreparable.

Some years ago I sympathised much and took great
interest in the movement that tended towards the higher
education of women. I still think that every door should
be thrown open and every facility given, both as regards
education and professional employment, to such women
who have mind and strength for the competition. The
great danger of over-educating young girls is that they
are so much keener and work so much harder than boys ;
and even if it does not injure their health, it very often
unfits them for life, and makes them dissatisfied with
their home and its surroundings.

The great objection to the superficial education I
recommend and believe to be so advantageous to the
prosperous, is that it may degenerate into idleness and

332 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

frivolity in times of prosperity, and so prove an utter
failure in times of adversity, and in the possibility of
having to earn a livelihood later in life. I think most
sensible young women of the present day feel the
necessity of attaining a proficiency in some one direction,
to which they could turn for help in the hour of need.
Very often, however, the occupation that might best be
turned to bread-winning is not the one to which girls are
most addicted in their prosperity. In such a case, when
money-making is not the object, they must make their
own standard, and reach, if possible, a high order of
proficiency; for to take up any one thing, and then
to do it badly, has a deteriorating effect upon the
moral nature. The superficial beginning which, accord-
ing to my theory, is conducive to largeness of mind,
is a good preparation to later special training. The
only other alternative, which is the worst of all, is if girls
fold their hands and say they are not clever, and that
they can do nothing. With patience and perseverance
every girl can do something. Once a woman has
made up her mind that she has to earn her living, no.
concentration of study for the one particular occupation
she has in view can be too thorough or too severe. The
essential requirement for bread-winning is that she should
be able to do some one thing better than the generality
of people with whom she is in competition.

Now we come to the eternal and ever-discussed
question, what young girls should read. I have no
hesitation in saying that, taking the question all round,
the safest, wisest, most sensible way out of the difficulty,
is to let girls read from childhood anything they like.
Never make a child come and ask, never forbid this book
or that; the moment you do, you get into a sea of hopeless
difficulties. Where a girl is pure-minded, nothing will
hurt her; where she is not, the forbidding of one book

DAUGHTERS 333

and allowing another raises a curiosity which will do far
more harm than leaving it alone. All that is harmful in
the Bible or Shakespeare is simply not understood. Why
should it not be the same with other books? No one
ever dreams of what they do not know. Dreams often
distort and twist our knowledge ; no dream ever instructs
us in anything of which we are ignorant.

Without forbidding any one book or other, it would
be wise for a mother to recommend her daughter not to
read the current novels of the day, at the time they are
being continually discussed in public, if they are of a
nature which unfits her to join in the conversation. It
is not that there is harm in having read the book, but
there are some things which it is impossible for a girl to
talk about. In Richter’s ‘ Levyana,’ which I mention
elsewhere, there are some excellent passages on this very
subject. In this permission to read or not to read books,
as in all else that seriously concerns the education of
children, the all-important thing is that the father and
mother should agree. Nothing has so bad an effect on
children, and they are quick to learn it, as that father
thinks one thing and mother another. A wife had far
better allow a fault to pass than try to stop that which
she knows her husband would allow ; and a husband had
far better back the mother when he thinks her wrong
than condemn her before her children. There is an old
saying that widows’ children turn out well. I do not
think this means that women are more fitted to manage
a family alone than men are, but men very rarely give the
subject their consideration. There is nothing, when men
really try, that they do not do better than women—from
the highest in art and literature, to the humblest cooking
and tailoring. I think the old saw merely means that one
will and one law are better than a divided judgment. If
a woman has strong views on education, let her begin by

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334 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

educating and persuading her husband. If she cannot
do this, let her simply try and carry out his wishes and
views, whatever they are.

Not an unusual trouble of family life is that the
energetic, and those who are happy through employing
themselves, no matter in what way, are apt to be a sore
trial to the idle and to those who want to be amused and
excited. Many of us know the disappointment of rushing
into a room, anxious to confide something of great or no
importance to a sympathetic human being, and finding
presented towards us what can only be described as a
busy back, and the chilled feeling which results from
the doubt whether or not we have any right to disturb it.

Sometimes the parents are idle and the children
industrious, which is perhaps the most common. The
children must then not exact an interest in their work,
which they are not likely to get. Schopenhauer says:
‘Whoever seriously takes up and pursues an object that
does not lead to material advantages must not count on
the sympathy of his contemporaries.’

When parents are the energetic, hard-working ones,
let them remember a passage in a letter of Madame de
Staél’s, whose biography is so interesting because she
represents in a large sense what most women are in a
smaller. She writes from England in 1813:—‘Il n’y a
point de ressources dans mes enfants; ils sont éteints,
singulier effet de ma flamme.’ So often children by their
very natures are only contrasts to ourselves. What our
children are born, they remain; of that I am sure. By
this I mean that there are certain qualities of character
which we can no more change than we can alter the
colour of the hair and eyes. What we can do is to help
each one to make the best of what he or she actually is, still
better said by an old saint, ‘Do not try to be not what
you are, but very well what you are!’

DAUGHTERS 335

How many years ago it is since John Stuart Mill
wrote: ‘When will education consist, not in repressing
any mental faculty or power, from the uncontrolled action
of which danger is apprehended, but in training up to its
proper strength the corrective and antagonistic power?’
This is only very old wisdom in other words, as it is
Aristotle who says that true virtue is placed at an equal
distance between the opposite vices.

This quoting the wisdom of others you perhaps will
think very cheap philosophy. It is better, however, than
trying, like Sydney Smith, to write a book of maxims, and
failing to do so, as he himself says he never got further
than the following: ‘Towards the age of forty, women
get tired of being virtuous and men of being honest.’ I
must, all the same, admit that there are many less true
sayings than this one.

A tendency of the present day is towards a kind of
hardness—at any rate, outwardly. It is not the fashion to
be low-spirited, and for a woman to cry in public is thought
a shame. I confess I think there is a certain danger in
the cultivation of qualities in women that bring forth a
sort of glittering brightness which gives out light, not
heat, and therefore fails to warm. Perhaps this suppres-
sion is the very thing that helps to encourage one of the
well-known complications of family life—namely, friend-
ships. The difficulty follows us through life, as we all
know how hard it often is to appreciate our friends’
friends. This, however, is not of much importance, as
the friends of our friends we can more or less avoid
without discourtesy. But with the friends of our near
relations the matter assumes considerable importance,
and we absolutely owe it to them to treat their friends
with extreme courtesy and kindness, however little
may be our sympathy towards them, or however critically
we may judge them.

336 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Some people are born without what Mr. George
Meredith so well describes as ‘ the gift of intimacy.’ They
would be reserved, even in love, the only key that ever
unlocks such hearts. Friendships they have none, either
with their own sex or with the other. No doubt life is
simpler to such people; to others it would be unbearably
lonely. There are a few women who would have been
very glad of friends, but whose loyalty to the disloyal
around them forces them into loneliness and silence, for
there is no friendship in the world without confidence.

Friendships are safety-valves, and the wisdom of
safety-valves is easy to appreciate. All the same, these
intimacies must be regulated and conducted upon the
rules of civilised society. I love the young who wish to
fight conventionalities and turn and boldly face Mrs.
Grundy ; but I despise the old who do not help the young
to see that they are only making useless martyrs of them-
selves in a cause which is, at the bottom, not noble and
not great, but only a method of giving vent to their own
selfishness and self-indulgence. Before you fight con-
ventionality you must prove that conventionality is
wrong, and this can never be done by the young. To
deny friendships to natures that require them is to force
on them what Mr. Morley calls ‘the awful loneliness of
life—a life full of acquaintances as a cake is full of
currants, no two ever touching each other.’ It is one of
the great sorrows of a high position that people cannot
have intimates. Froude says somewhere: ‘The great are
expected to be universally gracious, and universal
graciousness is perhaps only possible to the insincere
or the commonplace, or to the supremely great and
fortunate.’

We cannot give anyone our experience. This is a
common saying, and quite true from the point of view of
the old. Nevertheless, if the young determine, through

DAUGHTERS 337

independence or pride, to work out their lives for them-
selves, and refuse to be helped, guided, or taught by the
knowledge and experience of those who have gone before
them—in the books of the dead and the speaking of the
living—they throw themselves back in the race in a way
that generally, to my knowledge, has resulted in failure.
Even cases of marked talent and individuality must learn
from others. In art and in music they must all work, at
first, after the manner of someone else. Supposing, for
instance, that Albert Direr had lived in Venice, he would
have been a Venetian painter, and not have worked on the
lines of the old German painters. This would have been
greatly to his advantage. Itis true that circumstances do
not make talent, but they immensely influence it; so
nothing in the lives and training of the young who are
no longer children, especially if they are precocious and
clever, is unimportant.

On looking back, one of the disappointments of my
life, when I recollect how the matter was discussed and
written about in my girlhood, is the little progress that
has been made in the laying-by and organising of
fortunes for girls. Ido not only mean leaving them a
few thousand pounds at the death of both parents, but,
as a matter of course, either giving them asum of money,
as the French do, when they marry, or giving them a
sufficient allowance, according to the fortunes of the
father, if they take to any employment and do not marry.
The modern hack phrase, that children owe their parents
nothing for bringing them into the world without their
leave, is of course ridiculous; but I do think a right-
minded father ought to realise that a woman who has
not a penny she can call her own, is a kind of
slave. The same thing applies to a husband if a wife
goes to him with nothing. She cannot even give a
present without asking him for the money. I think

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girls would be much happier if at twenty-one they were
given allowances sufficient, not only for dress—which
should begin, as with boys, much earlier—but to cover
all expenses, except board and lodging : namely, journeys,
theatres, doctors, dentists, amusements, masters, and so
on. One girl would spend her allowance in one way and
one in another, but she would get as much profit or pleasure
to her individual self out of it as she could afford. If she
were well, she would not want doctors and dentists ; if
she were ill, she would not want amusements: and in
either case she would be learning the value of money.
We all know the discussions that go on in every family.
In one case the mother wishes her daughter to have
singing and piano lessons, though the daughter is
indifferent ; the master is hired, and the money and time
are more or less wasted. In another case the daughter
is pining for drawing lessons, and the mother looks upon
it as rather a waste of money. Both these cases would
be adjusted if the deciding of their own education and
the paying of the lessons rested with the grown-up
daughters. This ought not to prevent mothers and
daughters from discussing together what is the most
desirable course to adopt; it merely leaves the ultimate
decision with the learner. In fact, I would extend these
family discussions to all the important matters of life, and
even call in some reliable friend or relation, whose opinion
is valued by all parties, to help in the decision, on the
lines of that powerful legal arrangement which, in
French family life, is called conseil de famille. We get
so many useful hints on family life by the reading of
biographies that, to my mind, it is the most interesting of
all literature for the middle-aged. In Darwin’s ‘ Life’ I
was immensely struck by an uncle interfering to over-
rule the decision of the good kind father, who had
refused the offer that young Darwin should go for the

DAUGHTERS 339

scientific voyage on the ‘Beagle.’ The father instantly
yielded to the opinion of his brother, and this perhaps
decided the whole of Darwin’s life.

When I say that it is wise to gather as many
opinions as we can, it must always be with the idea
of helping our own judgment, never as putting the
responsibility on to others of any important decision,
which ought to rest entirely with ourselves, and which, as
in the case of Darwin’s father, we may entirely alter ; but
when we change, we equally accept the responsibility of
any important decision quite independently of the adviser.

It stands to reason that when parents give their
children money to spend according to their own wishes
and tastes, they are acting a great deal more unselfishly
than when they spend on their children, however
lavishly, only to make them do what the parents con-
sider desirable. This giving freedom to children means
a good deal more self-sacrifice on the part of the parents,
and, as the unselfishness of one person is very apt to
produce the selfishness of another, it is a question for
each parent to decide whether the sacrifice had better
come from the old or from the young. It is an undeni-
able fact that the tastes of children are likely to be the
reverse, rather than a repetition, of the tastes of their
parents. In weighing these questions, however, you
must always cast into the scale the importance of a true
knowledge of the value of money, which nothing but
practical experience can give.

Few things bring such ruin, in every sense of the
word, to the happiness of married life as the extravagant
wife—the wife who runs up bills, and who amidst tears
and penitence and promises not to do the same again,
immediately does so. Can anything as much as this,
short of actual immorality, bring a respectable woman se
nearly to the level of the unrespectable ?

Z2

340 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Strong advocate as I am for marriage, I do agree
with Miss Frances Power Cobbe, ‘That for a woman to
fail to make and keep a happy home is to be a greater
failure, in a true sense, than to have failed to catch a
husband.’ I have noted somewhere the following sentence,
and I think it as true as it is lofty in tone: ‘ There is
only one real power in this world for man or woman—
the power given by character. It carries far more weight
than talent does without it. The woman who cultivates
unswerving rectitude, firm energy, and persevering good-
ness, will become a centre and a factor in the lives of
others, wherever her lot is cast. All round us we see
such women forced by outside pressure into positions of
comparative, if not positive, prominence, and they have
no need to whine over the unalterable fact of sex.’

The better a girl or a woman is treated by a father or
a husband in the matter of money, the more heavily does
the duty remain with her to remember that, after all, the
money is only conditionally hers, and that no woman has
a right to eat a man’s food, dress with his money, enjoy
his luxuries to the full, and then not in every way try to
please him; and certainly she should never do systemati-
cally that which he distinctly disapproves. If she cannot
persuade him, she must submit and do his will. No
woman is really free who cannot keep herself; and even
if she earns her own livelihood, she has to submit to her
employers.

One can hardly write a ‘note’ on girls and avoid the
great subject of dress. Certainly let the young dress in
the fashion, in order to be attractive ; for there is no doubt
that, even if the fashion is ugly, to be dressed in the
fashion looks smart. When I was young I was scolded
for trying always to get the last new pattern from Paris.
I used appealingly to remark, ‘I can’t be graceful, let me
be smart.) There are always certain women who can

> i oe

DAUGHTERS 341

dress artistically and peculiarly, and who look well in
whatever they put on; but these are the exception, and
their imitators—as is usual with imitators—are apt to
adopt their faults rather than their merits. Exceptional
dress, independently of the wearer, is rarely, I think,
attractive. Women who have dropped out of the
fashion themselves are apt to be a little tried, when
their daughters grow up, by the dress of the day, and to
think it rather exaggerated and ridiculous, just as the
daughter would feel her mother’s wedding-gown to be
impossible and out-of-date. A mother can only give her
daughter general training, and then leave her to dress
as she likes, merely offering her the kindly criticism that
would be given her by a friend or a sister; for every
woman looks best in that which she herself has chosen,
and which is an indication of her own individuality. By
this I do not deny that many a mother would dress her
daughter much better than the girl would dress herself ;
but the note of character would be wanting, which, in my
opinion, makes dress in the long run the most becoming.

Even when they are children, little girls often surprise
their parents by saying something unexpectedly different
from what they have been taught. I know a father who,
when walking with his small daughter in the streets of
London, stopped before the window of a smart milliner’s
shop. When they had looked and admired for a little time,
the father, perhaps rather priggishly, remarked: ‘ After
all, my dear, I like simplicity best.’ The child answered :
‘That’s not at all like me, father; I like splendour best.’

Deny it as we will, the real object of dress is to
attract ; and for a woman to dress herself in crimson and
purple, when she knows quite well that her husband or
father prefers quiet colours, or even black, shows a
neglect of the amenities of life that is stupid, if ii is
nothing worse.

342 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

From a higher point of view, there is nothing so im-
portant in dress as the accentuation of what are our
physical characteristics. A fat girl in tight tailor-made
clothes looks ridiculous. A girl with a tall slight figure,
like a boy, looks well tight and neat, ready for the active
exercise she is fit for. The womanly woman looks best
in soft laces and ruffles and chiffons, be she fat or thin.

Let middle-aged and old women, except when they
are widows, dress in the fashion slightly modified. They
are then neither conspicuous nor ridiculous. Is there
not wisdom in dressing rather in advance of your years
than behind it? Many a dress lasts three or four years ;
so we ought, at turning-points in our lives, to remember
that this makes a difference. It has been said that the
lamp of life is not to be measured by the age of the vessel,
but by the supply of the light. Prettily expressed, I
admit, and there is something in it, but it is only a half-
truth, and the Baptismal Register is the best guide for us
personally. Nothing displeases the young so much as to
see the generation before them dressed too youthfully,
and nothing so accentuates the years that have passed
over a woman as the outward display of her having for-
gotten them herself. I remember once remarking to a
friend how well a tall, slight woman dressed, and how it
suited and improved her. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘a thin, tall
woman is a peg for clothes; but there is all the dif-
ference in the world, as the Frenchman said, between
une belle taille and wn beaw corps.’ So there are con-
solations in all things, and many of the great passions
of the world have been for plain women—perhaps because
they themselves are so much more grateful for the affec-
tion given. Beauty added to other things is a great
power; let no one despise it. Itis often easier for a
beautiful woman to behave well than for her plainer
sisters. She has the ball at her feet, and she knows it.

DAUGHTERS 343

I have been asked whether an unmarried woman is
happier with a profession or without one. Without hesita-
tion of course I answer— Yes, with a profession,’ especially
if itis the outcome of any particular talent. The real
cause of the happiness which ensues is that it gives her
the same excuse and the same ease to her conscience for
selfishness as aman has. It always works round to the
same thing—how much can a woman evade her home
duties in order to be able to indulge in any intellectual
occupation which takes up her mind, to the detriment of
the ordinary, petty drudgeries such as practically absorb
most women’s lives? The great difficulty for a woman
who is head of a house, or even for a daughter who helps
much in the management of a house, allowing herself the
pleasure of any intellectual employment—be it writing, or
art, or music, or even reading conducted as a study—is
that the very meaning of work is absorption. Women
are by their natures impressionable and too apt to become
engrossed in anything they are doing, to the neglect of
the claims of others. It is not exactly the time that it
takes from the husband and children, but the thoughts of
a@ woman are not quickly brought back to the level of her
ceaseless duties. I heard once of the wife of an Ambassa-
dor, who was devoted to drawing, having arranged for a
dinner for royalties, &c., planning the details with her ser-
vants in her usual careful way. The day arrived, she had
time on her hands, the weather was lovely ; she took her
sketching things and went out. She became so absorbed
in her drawing and the beauty of the evening that the
royal guests, the husband, and the dinner became abso-
lutely effaced from the tablet of her memory. She arrived
home at half-past nine, to find her husband agonised,
her guests expectant and a little angry, all believing she
must have come to some injury. This little anecdote
exactly illnstrates what I mean, and describes the struggle

344 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

that goes on, more or less, in many women’s lives. Of
course the same thing occurs, to a great degree, with
busy men, whose brains are often as much occupied, to the
exclusion of other things, in the work that interests them.
But since, as a rule, they have more power of arrang-
ing their lives to suit their tastes, their absorption affects
less the happiness or convenience of others, and they
often have a practical wife who helps them out of their
difficulties. No doubt there are instances of both men
and women who have the power of combining, in the
highest sense, both work and play. A pathetic little
touch in a woman’s biography is of how Mrs. Browning
wrote ‘Aurora Leigh’ as an invalidin Paris. She was con-
stantly interrupted by friends and visitors, and used quietly
to tuck the little bits of paper under the pillow of her
sofa, to resume her imaginative work when again alone.
The complications of life were lessened for her by the fact
that she!inhabited a sick-room. I think the women who
will do most for the cause of their sex in the future are
those who cease to fight for an equality with men, which
is practically an impossibility, and will strive, from their
youth up, to keep a just balance between duty, pleasure,
and intellectual pursuits ; sometimes asking the help of
others to decide when the two last must give way to the
first. I am terribly tempted to scratch out this last
sentence—it sounds so odiously priggish; and yet, of
course, we all know there is a good deal of truth in it.

If a woman has been ever so successful in a profession,
it is my experience that she gives it up after marriage.
Every man always says, at the time of engagement, that
he would not for the world interfere with her work; but
it always ends in the work being given up, if the house is
to be properly kept. Imagine, if there were sickness or
any other kind of domestic disaster in the house, the
man would never dream of giving up his work, whatever

DAUGHTERS 345

it might be. But think of a woman, head of any such
household, sitting down under the circumstances to write
a poem, or to paint a picture, or going out to her model-
ling studio? The woman’s profession must go to the
wall, unless it is under the very exceptional circumstances
when the woman is the bread-winner, or even partially
so, and when disaster may increase the necessity for her
earnings.

Perhaps many Englishwomen would deny what I
really believe to be the truth—namely, that passion is the
great moving power of life, the root of all that is highest
and noblest in us, the developer of all that is artistic,
intellectual, affectionate, and even religious in ourselves.
Some people may accuse me of inconsistency in saying
this. Of that I should be proud, for can anything ever
approach the inconsistency of life—especially, perhaps,
the life of women? Women—Englishwomen, at all
events—imagine that there is but one danger in having
strong feeling, and that, if that is sufficiently suppressed
in the direction which is natural and ordinary, it ceases
to cause any alarm at all. Ido not agree with this. It
is a platitude to talk of the dual nature which we all have
within us. The contrast between these two natures is
much more marked, and causes a fiercer struggle, in
passionate natures than in cold ones.

Women, as well as men have a twin within them,
often concealed, which represents all that is strongest
and most lovable in their natures. They generally
have something which they like doing better than any-
thing else in the world, and which for that reason is
very apt to interfere with their duty, however innocent
or even meritorious it may be in itself, whether it takes
the form of writing, art, politics, philanthropy, or the
practice of religion. Ifa married woman throws all this
power, so often described as suppressed steam, into any

346 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

employment that makes her daily duties tiresome and
hateful to her, she is yielding to a form of self-indulgence
which more or less feeds her vanity and robs her home
and her children of that which is the most vivifying
portion of herself and of the one most likely to call forth
from them both admiration and esteem.

This to many will be a hard saying, as it means
leaving the higher employment of women to those who
are most free from natural duties; that is, generally, to
the unmarried, who for that very reason are in some
ways the least understanding of our sex. |

Mothers and fathers should never lose sight of the
fact, as their daughters grow up, that confidence is only
likely to begin when given first by parents to children, from
the old to the young. Sympathy is not the consequence
of confidences, but the magnet that attracts them; so
by confiding in our children, we may fail to get their
sympathy, but we are always able to give them ours.

I think that mothers might remind their sons and
daughters, especially when they are grown up, how very
much the old like receiving the attention of the young,
and seeing that the young have no fear of them ; for I do
not doubt that, if young people really believed this, they
would probably pay these attentions more often, with
both advantage and interest to themselves. There is a
great deal to be got out of the experience and memories
of those much older than ourselves, if we can only make
them realise how much we wish both to hear and to learn.

In the management of house and children, as in a
larger rule, let us remember that liberalism is a frame of
mind which has for its root the simple morality of doing
unto others as you would they should do unto you.

It is a very doubtful question whether, in the houses
of the fairly wealthy, the daughters can be of very much
help to the mother unless she herself finds that she has

DAUGHTERS 347

more than she likes to do, and apportions certain depart-
ments—such as housekeeping, card-leaving, writing notes,
or gardening, &c.—to one or other of the daughters. The
vague expectation in a mother that her daughter ought to
help her, often results in a good deal of ordering about, a
waste of time on the daughter’s part, and that state of
things generally which ends in friction. If a daughter is
unusually unselfish, and constantly thinking how she can
please and serve her mother, the result is that the
daughter becomes a mere drudge, while the mother but
half appreciates the sacrifice she has made of her life.
We often discover in families the ideal woman of
family life. She is always willing to immolate herself
on the altar of duty and unselfishness, unconscious of
this at the time, because to serve others is her pleasure,
and consequently for the moment the development of
her own nature. That woman, especially if she has
intelligence as well, fills a want in the world that
everyone acknowledges and admires. But, unless the
situation is carefully watched, she herself may dis-
cover too late that she has let her youth go by in the
suppression of herself, and, without intending it, has
ruined her own life. The one thing that is of vital
importance is that the young should never be sacrificed
to the old or the healthy to the unhealthy. ven if the
mother and daughter work well together, there is hardly
enough to occupy the time of two women, and divided
rule never is satisfactory. It is a common view that
housekeeping is rather an inferior employment for women,
and only done well by the commonplace, who are devoted
to it. I do not think this, though I quite admit that
housekeeping is often very tiresome—or, rather, I would
say wearisome—and every woman pines to get away from
it now and then. Every head of a house—be she wife,
mother or daughter—has to do it, and no woman worth

348 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

her salt likes to do a thing and do it badly. If it is badly
done, it is a humiliation ; when it is well done, it becomes
a pride: and the approval of those we love is always a
joy. Men differ, of course, very much in their apprecia-
tion of cooking and other housekeeping matters. When
the man cares, though he scold, or sigh and look miserable
when things go wrong, it is more stimulating to the
woman than when he appears indifferent; but all men
and most women appreciate a well-kept house, though I
have heard there are some women who make such
grievance over their duties that the man almost wishes
they were left alone.

One of the most useful gifts in life is to be able to
organise, command, and instruct others; to use, in fact,
the materials under your hand, instead of doing every-
thing yourself. Servants certainly do not respect those
who do their work for them, and the irresponsibility of
the situation only makes them careless and indifferent.
On the other hand, it should be thoroughly realised that
no one can depute to others the control of their ex-
penditure without greatly increasing it.

In cooking, in dressmaking, in gardening, it is, so to

speak, the scientific and esthetic part which really ought
to be done by the mistress of the house. She has time
to study the books and newspapers; and if she really
knows her work she will find no difficulty in teaching it.
Every generation is known to complain that servants
have become useless and bad. I see no difference during
my life-time ; in fact, I should say that the proportion of
good servants had increased, rather than the contrary.
Of course, their customs and ways have changed with
telegrams, posts, and railways, as have the habits of
everybody else ; and if any housekeeper has moments of
depression, as we all have when things go cross, and
thinks the world is going to the dogs, may I recommend

DAUGHTERS 349

a little study of eighteenth-century literature—above all,
Boswell’s ‘ Life of Johnson.’

The spread of education is often brought forward as a
reason for the deterioration of servants. I must put in a
protest against this. I never will believe it! On the
contrary, Mill’s definition of education will always remain
true to me: ‘The best employment of all the means
which can be made use of for rendering the human mind,
to the greatest possible degree, the cause of human
happiness.’

It is essential, for the well-regulating of a house, that
the orders to servants should be given early in the morn-
ing. Everything except flower-arranging ought to be got
through in an hour. When people complain that house-
keeping takes so long, it is either that they are ignorant
and undecided, or that they are out of health, and come
down very late in the morning, and things get out of
order from being left to the servants for several days in
the week.

I fear many young people will probably think me
priggish and disagreeable if I say that, be a woman ever
so delicate, it is far better for her to get up early and see
to her work, even if she finds it necessary to take a rest at
twelve or three. I ama great believer in early rising,
partly because it implies a generally healthy life, and
means that there are no large late dinners or late going
to bed ; for itis impossible to burn the candle at both ends.
I think most women would work best in the morning ;
but I quite admit that, owing to the faults of family life,
time is seldom entirely her own, except in the privacy
of her room, either at night or in the very early morning.

Some years ago I was asked by a rich woman who
had come to London with a view to entertaining, how I
did it. She had come prepared to make a regular London
list of unknown swells, and was rather surprised when I

350 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

answered: ‘I never send out formal invitations, and I
never ask anyone who is not more or less a personal
friend of my own, or someone brought at the request of
one of these friends, this last being a distinct element of
success.’ If two people are really happy in a room, it
sheds a glow of brightness all around them. This, to my
mind, applies to all private and unofficial entertaining
which is done for pleasure—one’s own and that of others
—rather than duty. All entertaining, to be good, should
be a collection of people who meet because they either
really know each other or would like to do so. The
moment people are brought together for any reason
connected with duty, the party, unless it is very large, is
sure to go badly and to bedull. The dinners we all dread
are those where the host and hostess ask people to meet
each other because they have duties of various kinds to
pay off. The deadly dulness of all garden parties in the
country is a marked example of the extraordinary flatness
that results from turning society into a social duty, and
having to ask a whole neighbourhood at once, which is in
no sense true hospitality. Duty and charity are excellent
things, but they cannot be turned into agreeable social
gatherings.

I think it often surprises people, and especially men,
that middle-aged women, even those who have no
daughters, are so energetic and indefatigable in their
efforts to go into society in a way they rather avoided
than courted when they were younger. Society is always
only too glad to shunt the middle-aged, and the middle-
aged themselves so often feel it to be only a treadmill. I
am sure the secret is to be found, consciously or uncon-
sciously, in the love of power. It gives people the
opportunities to help, not only their own children, if they
have any, but other people in whom they may happen to
be interested, who are often benefited by an opportune

cor? Pe" = in

DAUGHTERS 351

word in high places. This is what transforms the tread-
mill and the burden and the labour into something so
worth while that it almost becomes a pleasure.

In entertaining at home, our object should be rather
to help those who want help, and who may unex-
pectedly rise into positions of power and trust, than
always to be making up to those who are already in high
places, and who are full of suspicion with regard to the
civilities that are paid to them. To practise the wisdom
of life, without standing on the stilts of higher morality,
is rather a virtue than a vice in the middle-aged. It is as
old as Alsop, who bids us not to despise making up to the
mice ; for though you yourself may be very much a lion,
the day may come when you will need the services of a
mouse. We all know La Fontaine’s summing-up of the
old story :—‘Il faut, autant qu’on peut, obliger tout le
monde. On a souvent besoin d’un plus petit que soi.’

One of the unexpected consolations to a woman who
is leaving her youth behind her, is that she can take
broader and more lenient views of the moral faults
indulged in by her friends and acquaintances. It is a
revelation that comes sooner or later to every woman
how much is excused and sanctioned by society which
in her youth would have seemed to her impossible.
The middle-aged woman may often say to herself, half in
fun, ‘After all, a little remorse is better than a vast
amount of regret. At any rate,’ she adds, ‘I will not
police society. I might crush the weak, and I should do
no harm to the strong.’ Is it not true and even beautiful
that ‘tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner’? Middle-age
is essentially the time of a lowered moral standard. This
is the attitude of mind, let us say, between forty and fifty
—a, little sooner or a little later, according to the tem-
perament. Then comes another phase, which is in no
sense an hypocritical one. As the young around us grow

352 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

into men and women, with the temptations and trials that
life must always bring, we recall our own youth, and a
feeling of responsibility, almost of awe, comes over us.
Anyone who has gone through the ages would know what
Imean. To forgive and excuse the mistakes and faults
of life is a very different thing from helping the young
out of the strait way. It has been truly said that it is
all very well to sneer at commonplace morality in the
abstract ; but the moment it is a question of any young
people who are dear to us, we cannot help desiring it for
them, though we may have laughed at it for ourselves.
Then the young think the old uncharitable, narrow-
minded, and unkind; but they are not so. One of the
saddest things in life is the isolation of the old. They
can partly understand the young, but the young never can
understand them, for are they not far away along a road
the young have never seen ?

Strange, is it not, that of the myriads who
Before us passed the door of darkness through,
Not one returns to tell us of the road,
Which, to discover, we must travel too?
Omar Khayyam.

APPENDIX

JAPANESE ART OF ARRANGING CUT
FLOWERS!

Ir is now some years since Mr. J. Conder’s excellent book,
‘The Flowers of Japan and the Art of Floral Arrangement,’
was first published. But the principles laid down in it have so
little penetrated the art of cut-flower arrangements in England
that it may be assumed either that the book is still very little
known or that its teaching has been set down as unsuited to
English flowers and flower-vases. The book is not published
in England, but almost any bookseller will get it from Japan;
the cost is 2/.2s. The coloured plates, to which chiefly this
high price is due, do not materially contribute to the expounding
of the theory and, although full of character and beauty in
themselves, could be omitted without loss to the main object
of the book. A smaller and much cheaper edition of the work
could then be produced and published in England.?

1 From the Garden of October 6, 1894.

? Mr. Conder has lately published three articles on the same subject
in the October, December ’96, and January ’97 numbers of the Stwdio—
that unusually artistic magazine which is to be had monthly for one shilling.
Mr. Conder’s articles are beautifully illustrated with numerous plates
of Japanese designs, reproduced from photographs; and in the text he
sums up many of the most interesting points contained in his book. He
does not suggest that the art of which he writes could be applied to the
arrangement of cut flowers in England, but it is to be hoped that these
articles—which are, unfortunately, already out of print—may be re-
published in book form. The great beauty of the illustrations would do
more to spread the practice of the art amongst English people than any
written theory upon it.—C. L., March 1897.

ah

354 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

In the meanwhile, however, it is my object to spread its
teaching and to show how, with but slight modifications and
relaxation from the stricter Japanese rules, this artistic science
may be adapted to English flowers and English drawing-rooms.
It has a strong claim to being adopted by all lovers of the
beautiful and the practical combined because, first, these
decorations have a quite unique beauty and refinement ;
secondly, cut flowers and shrubs live long in water when sup-
ported by a flower-holder in the Japanese way, to be described
presently; thirdly, only very few flowers or branches are
required—a great advantage to those who have but small
gardens, to people living in towns where flowers are expensive,
and for the seasons of the year when flowers are scarce. Also
an extremely decorative effect can be produced without making
the room airless from the scent of many flowers. Fourthly, the
infinite variety of design it is possible to produce with but few
branches on the Japanese principle as compared to the English
may be likened to the number of changes that can be rung on a
few bells when a given system is followed, whereas the different
bells rung simultaneously produce only one, and that a dis-
cordant, sound.

Roughly speaking, the Japanese art of cut-flower decorations
may be classified into three fundamental principles :—

1. Not alone the flowers and leaves, but also the stems or
branches should be considered as part of the design—in fact, it
is the most important part.

2. The branches are not allowed to lean against the edge
of the vase, as in the English manner, but must be firmly
supported either by a wooden fixer fitted into the neck of the
vase, or by coils of iron if open basin-shaped or flat-bottomed
vessels are used, this giving to the stems the appearance of
srowth and self-support.

3. Only such flowers and trees as are easily obtainable
should be used. Rarity is not considered a merit, and foreign
or out-of-the-way plants are only permitted to be used by those
who have a thorough knowledge of the nature of their growth,
characteristics, &e. The flowers used should be in season, and
the design of the decoration suited to its position in the room——
a.e. if under a picture, on a shelf, in the centre of an alcove,
&c.—as well as adapted to the vase which holds it.

APPENDIX 355

Although one of my objects is to show how much the
English method may be improved without too great a sub-
servience to the strictest laws of the Japanese art, yet it would
be ditticult to make myself understood by the uninitiated without
first giving an outline of that science, which was originally, it is
supposed, a religious rite, and which to-day is still a much-
reverenced art in Japan. For this purpose I shall quote freely
from Mr. Conder’s book, as it would be impossible to improve

JAPANESE ROSE (noS4 RUGOSA) IN A METAL VASE

upon his lucid and concise treatment of the subject. The
following are selected as the most important rules to be
observed :—

The surface ot the water in which the flowers are placed is
technically considered to be the soil from which the floral
growth springs, and the designer must here convey the impres-
sion of stability and strength.

The springing, or point of origin of the floral group, is

AA2

356 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

FLOWER FASTENERS

APPENDIX ao

of great importance, and the firm and skilful fixing of the stems
or branches in the vessel which holds them is one of the most
difficult parts of the manipulation. Ordinarily, the stems are
held in position by small cylindrical pieces of wood, fitting
tightly across the neck of the flower vase, and having a slit,
wider above than below, for threading them through. The
wedge-shaped form, wider towards the top, which is given to
the slit allows slightly different inclinations to be imparted to the
several branches. The fastener should be fixed about half an
inch below the surface of the water, and should not be visible
from the front of. the vessel. Some schools affect a rustic
simplicity in their appliances, and employ a naturally forked
twig to hold the flowers in position. For arrangements in
neckless vases, such as sand-bowls or shallow tubs, other sorts
of fasteners are necessary. One kind consists of a sheet of
copper perforated with holes of different sizes, to receive the
extremities of the different stems. Another fastener is made
of rings or different sections of bamboo of varying diameters
attached to a wooden board, the stems finding lodgment in the
sockets thus formed, and being further held in position by
pebbles being placed over them.

The direction of the stems at starting need not be strictly
vertical; but, if curved, the curves should be strong ones.

The artist studiously avoids an equal-sided or symmetrical]
arrangement, but obtains a balance of a more subtle kind.

The triple arrangement may be taken as the original model
of all arrangements. The Principal is the central and longest
line of the design, and is made to form a double curve, with the
upper and lower extremities nearly vertical and in a continuous
line, the general shape being that of an archer’s bow. The
Secondary line should be about half, and the Tertiary line
about one quarter of the length of the Principal, supposing all
to be straightened out; and these two lines are arranged on
different sides of the Principal in graceful double curves of
varied character. As a general rule, the Secondary has a more
vertical and the Tertiary a more lateral tendency, the former
being on the outside of the arched bow formed by the Principal,
and the latter making a counterpoise on its hollow side. By
changing the direction and giving a different character to
the curves of these three lines, a great variety of design is
produced.

\’ Principal”

“ Secondary”

\

TRILINEAL ARRANGEMENT OF STEMS

APPENDIX 359

There is another style of design applied to a large class
of flower arrangements, in which the Principal line of the
composition has a horizontal, or almost horizontal, direction ;
the intention of such compositions being to suggest floral growth
on the edges of cliffs or banks, when used in hanging vessels or
vases placed on raised shelves.

The different lines have been spoken of as if existing in one
vertical plane parallel to the spectator; but actually these lines
have also directions of varying degrees forward or backward.
In other words, the extreme points of these lines would require
a solid and not a plane figure for their enclosure.

The various directions imparted to plants and branches
of trees on the above principles are obtained first by a careful
selection of suitable material, then by twisting, bending, build-
ing together and fixing at the base, and lastly by means of
cutting and clipping off defective or superfluous parts.

Flower arrangements are made sometimes with one species
of tree or plant alone, and sometimes with a combination of
two or more species. The use of many different kinds of flowers
in one composition is opposed to the principles of the purer
styles.

In arranging two or more species in one composition, variety
must be sought by combining trees and plants. In a three-line
composition the branches of a tree should never be ‘ supported’
on both sides by a plant; nor should a plant be placed in the
centre with a tree arrangement on either side. The two
branches of the same kind must of necessity be used, but they
should adjoin, not sandwich, the remaining one. For example,
a composition with Irises (plant) in the centre and branches
of Azalea (tree) and Camellia (tree) on either side would be
defective. A correct composition would be one with a Plum
branch (tree) in the centre, with a Pine branch (tree) on one
side and Bamboo stem (plant) on the other. In cases of variety
being obtained by land and water plants, this rule is sometimes
violated.

The manipulation of different plants and tree-cuttings with
the object of preserving their vitality needs special study. In
some cases merely sharply cutting the extremity is sufficient to
preserve the succulence; but with other material the charring
of the end, or dipping in hot water to soften it, is common.

360 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

The Bamboo is particularly difficult to preserve. The inner
divisions are generally removed, and the inside of the tube filled
with spiced water or other stimulants. The object of these
methods is to get the water to rise in the stem, so that the
vitality of the bouquet may be preserved for days. Other
means are resorted to in order to prevent the advanced blossoms
falling off or dropping. In the case of some large and heavy
flowers, invisible Bamboo spikes are employed io keep them
erect. Salt is also applied at the base of certain blossoms, to
keep the connection moist, and thus defer the shedding which
often takes place owing to dryness.

The flower-vases are made of wood, porcelain, pottery,
bronze, brass, iron, and basket-work, with wooden, earthen-
ware, or tin receptacles inside for holding the water. They
vary as much in form as in material, the most common
standing vessels being broad and flat, or long-necked, opening
out to a broad flat surface at the mouth; tall, narrow vases are
also used. With the ordinary tall vase, whether of wide or
narrow mouth, the height of the flowers is generally fixed
as one and a half times that of the vase. In the case of broad,
shallow receptacles, the height of the floral composition is made
about one and a half times the breadth of the vessel. Vases for
hooking on to walls and for suspending from a shelf or ceiling
are also frequently used.

Having thus briefly quoted from the main principles of this
Japanese art as given by Mr. Conder, I shall now make a few
homely suggestions as to how they could be applied by any
of us in England.

The following practical directions may be found useful to
those who wish to try this system of flower arrangement at
once with as little trouble and as little expense as possible :—

Go round your house and collect all the china, earthenware,
and metal vessels that can ke spared—even a kettle, if nothing
else can be found, would do. JEarthenware dog-troughs are
specially adapted to water decorations; three-legged witch's
cauldrons and common salt-jars also do very well; an ordinary
earthenware flower-pot, with the hole at the bottom corked up,
would lend itself to wedging purposes; and every house con-
tains some ornamental pottery, bronze, brass, or silver vessels
of a suitable kind. Glass cannot be used, as the pressure of the

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APPENDIX 361

wedge would crack it; and for the same reason it is inadvisable
to try to fix a wedge in fine or valuable china.

From all these select those of a most suitable shape—z.e.
either broad and flat for water decorations; or narrow-necked
with a wide mouth; or a tall, narrow-necked shape, suitable for
supporting only one branch without a wedge. If the vessel be
small, and made only of thin pottery or china, it should be
weighted by placing stones or something heavy inside to
balance the weight of the flower erection; without this pre-
caution a tall arrangement might overbalance the whole thing.
If the vessel be heavy in itself—of bronze, brass, silver, or other
metals, or if of earthenware, sufliciently large to become heavy
when filled with water—then this additional weighting is not
necessary.

Your next step should be to procure some narrow wood—
fire-lighting wood, or laths of any kind. Measure the width
of the vase at the place where the wedge is to be fixed; this
should be slightly below the surface, so as to be concealed when
the vase is filled with water. Cut two pieces of wood to the
required length, and shape them at the end to fit the sides
of the vase; then scoop out the inner side of each piece of wood,
so as to form an oval-shaped opening when they are placed
together, slightly narrower below than at the top surface, so as
to allow the stalks a freer play of direction, at the same time
holding them firm. Then cut out a small notch at each angle
of the wood, at a distance of about half an inch from the ends ;
place the two pieces together, and tie them firmly with string
at both ends in the rut of the notches. The string should first
be soaked, wound round two or three times, and firmly knotted ;
it will then remain quite secure. Wire is even better adapted
to the purpose than string.

A yet simpler way is, instead of scooping out an oval-shaped
opening, to insert a small extra piece of wood at each end
between the two woods that form the wedge, and, by thus
keeping them apart, make an opening large enough for the
width of the stems.

When the wedge is made, soak it in water for a few seconds
to make the wood swell; then fix it firmly in the neck of the
vase.

Yet another fastener, and perhaps the most adaptable of any,

362 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

consists simply of a spiral coil made of sheet-lead cut into
ribbons. This can be bent about to suit the various sizes
of the stems. The weight of the leaden coil will balance flowers
and branches of considerable height, and it can always be
additionally weighted with stones if necessary. This fastener
may be used in almost every shaped vase, of no matter what
material; for there is no danger, as in the case of the fitting
wooden fasteners, that it will crack glass or fine china. Any
plumber will supply the strips of sheet-lead, which should be
about 2 ft. long, 2 in. wide, and } in. thick, though the sizes
vary, of course, according to the vase. It is quite easy to bend
these strips into a spiral coil.

These are simple ways of making flower-holders at home
with the most ordinary materials; but, of course, with more
trouble a great variety of fasteners can be made.

The next thing to be done is to get a branch of Bamboo or
other thin stick, not too brittle, and cut it up into pieces of about
an inch long, so as to have a heap of different thicknesses.
Before proceeding to cut or buy your flowers, you must decide
in what part of the room to place the decorations, so as to have
an idea of what would be suitable as to colour, size, and form.
If for the corner of a shelf or mantelpiece, the arrangement
might be high on one side of the vase, with a long streamer
pendent on the other. If for a table under a picture, it might
tend upwards, and the Tertiary line form almost a right angle
—in complement, as it were, to the shape of the frame when
placed to one side underneath it. For any purpose special
kinds of flowers are required, as it would be contrary to the
fundamental laws of the art to try and make a stiff or upward-
growing plant hang downwards, or to try and erect a flower
with a limp stem. One place, too, requires a tall, narrow
decoration; another a wide or more solemn one. When you
have the destined situation of the decoration in your mind, go
out and choose flowers and shrubs accordingly, bearing in mind
as you pick them the directions the stems will have to take.
It is as well always to have a basin of water ready in which to
place the flowers immediately after picking them, as in the
process of selection, fixing in the wedge, &c.—especially until
you are practised in the art—the flowers are apt to wither and
the vigour in the curves of the stems to get limp, so that it is

APPENDIX 363

difficult to carry out any design. The best plan is to place the
vase, before filling it, where it will eventually be required to
stand, so as to be sure and procure the suitable effect. It is
advisable not to put water in the vessel until the composition
is completed, as it sometimes tips over in the process of fixing
the stems in the wedge.

Before beginning the bouquet, make up your mind, in a
general way, what branches and flowers to use and how to
dispose them. Then first place the principal ones, fixing each
firmly in turn with the bits of Bamboo if not large enough to
fill the space, or by pruning the bottom of the stems if too thick,
so as exactly to fit the wedge. All tree-branches and shrubs
should have the bark peeled off the part which is under water,
as this allows a freer entrance to the moisture, and so enables
the plant to last fresh for a much longer time. When you have
finished the arrangement, stand at a little distance, and remove
all leaves, shoots, or flowers which interfere with the clearness
and beauty of line from various points of view. Then fill the
vase with water—slightly tepid is best, especially if the flowers
are at all faded. If the wedge is still visible above or through
the water, cover it over with a little Moss or other very light
leafage or, in the case of a water-plant decoration, with some
small water weed.

The diagrams showing the trilineal arrangement of stems
are taken from Mr. Conder’s book, and are in strict accordance
with the rules of the Japanese art. The other two illustrations
of flower decorations are photographed from life, and are merely
casual examples of the effect produced by this system of sup-
porting flowers by fasteners, even without conforming with any
great precision to the laws adhered to in Japan.

There is hardly a flower, shrub, or tree which is not, at one
stage of growth or other, adaptable to this style of arrangement,
but some of the most obviously suited are here mentioned by
way of suggestion. All fruit blossoms, wild or cultivated:
Blackthorn, May, Dog Rose, Bramble, Willow (more especially
in bud, known as ‘ palm’), Maple, Oak, Rhododendron, Azalea,
Laburnum, Wistaria, Tree Peony, Syringa, Berberis, Laurus-
tinus, Holly, and almost all kinds of Pine trees; Irises, Narcissi,
Bulrushes, Marsh Marigolds, Water Lilies, Honeysuckle, Clema-
tis, Chrysanthemums, &e.

364 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

I have dwelt almost entirely upon the technical side of the
art, this being the indispensable means to the end in view.
But the goal is one untouched by theory, unmolested by hard-

PYRUS JAPONICA IN METAL VASE

and-fast rules. The wonderful beauty ot proportion and balance,
the choiceness of selection, the effect of growth and vitality, of
dignity and grace, with which the whole of this art is pene-
trated, are not to be expressed in any doctrinal terms. The

*

APPENDIX 365

tender solicitude which it exacts for the habits and character-
istics, tastes and welfare of each plant, endows the least thing
utilised by this art with almost a personality. The relative con-
nection of one plant with another—the tall, aspiring Principal ;
the Secondary, which seems inclined to follow its lead, yet
hesitates half-way with questioning doubt; the Tertiary below,
in squat contentment—these admit of endless variety of inter-
pretation. To the Japanese every flower has its meaning and
associations, as well as every combination of flowers. The force
of contrast is ever present in their designs; the opposite sexes
are supposed to be represented, strength and weakness, stern-
ness and tenderness, &c. Without learning the grammar of
their complicated flower-language, might we not nevertheless
increase our artistic pleasure in flower arrangements by trying
to give them a suitableness and a meaning which they have
hitherto lacked? The old, long established English fashion of
massing together in a vase may still hold its own for certain
kinds of flowers; but, so strong is the fascination of the Japanese
principle, that, once it is adopted, it will probably assert its
authority even amongst a bunch of Primroses or Violets.

Constance Lytton.

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INDEX

Apsrnia rupestris, 45

Abstinence in relation to health,
270

Acanthus, 120

Aconite, 17

Acorns for decorating, 13

Aisculus parvifolia, 144

Agapanthus, 50, 114

Alliums, 102

Allotment system, 243

Aloes, Cape, 182

Alonsoa linifolia, 164

— Warscewiczi, 164

Aloysia citriodora, 45, 99

Alpines, 76, 88, 239

Alstreemerias, 132, 133

Alyssum, yellow, 103

Alyssums, 140

Amaranthus caudatus, 113

Amaryllis, 11, 12, 74

— belladonna, 161, 162

Amateur artists, 307-316

Amateurs, ambition of, 250

America, late springs and early
heat in, 200

Ampelopsis veitchii, 157, 158,
194, 195

Andrews, H., works of, 68, 69

Anemone apennina, 101

Anemones, 72, 184

Animal food, a warning against,
304

Anne, Queen, and her laws
against Catholics, and Horace

Walpole’s designation of her,

59

Annuals, time for sowing, 42, 86,
87, 132; selection of, 164

Anthemis tinctoria, 143

Antirrhinums, 134, 135

Aponogeton, 141

Apple-tart, with peach-leaves, 177

Apple-trees on turf, 169

Apples, how to keep, 103; wind-
falls of, 184

Arbutus, 84

Aristolochia, 95

Art for girls, 310, 311; first
lessons, 311, 312; defects of
schools, 312; an opening for
teachers of water-coloursketch-
ing, 312; beginners to per-
severe, 313, 314; suggestions
for getting over difficulties,
314, 315 ; water-colour drawing
more suitable for amateurs
than painting in oils, 315, 316

Art in the house, 277-280

Artemisia abrotanunr, 94

Artichokes, Jerusalem, cooking,
203

Arums, 16, 39, 72; often mis-
called ‘lilies,’ 74

Arundo donax, 119, 120

Asparagus, time for planting and
treatment of, 40, 41; method
of boiling, 98

Asparagus plumosa, 39

Aspidistras, treatment of, 8

Astrantias, 128, 129

Athletics, excessive addiction to,
271

368 POT-POURRI FROM

Aubrietias, 140

Aucubas, 40, 60

Auriculas, 140

Autumn, list of trees, creepers,
shrubs, and plants for, 190,
191

— annuals, 86, 87, 132

— morning, an, 179, 188, 189

Azaleas, 17, 72, 138, 169

Bacon, Lorp, on gardening, 224

Bad temper in children, treat-
ment of, 327

Bags for dried leaves, 8

Balsam, 160

Bamboos, leaves of, for table-
decoration, 13; growing, 119,
139, 195, 204; book on, 246

Banksia, yellow, 43

Barberry, common, 38, 39

‘ Barnacle Geese,’ superstition of,
57, 58

Bartonia awrea, time for sowing,
42, 164

Baskets, plants for, 163, 164

Bath-rooms, 285

Bay-tree, 169

Beans, preserving, 153, 203;
succession of, 174; cooking,
176

Béchamel sauce, 25; receipt for
preparing, 31, 32

Bedding-out system, introduction
of, 5; objections to, 48, 49,
225

Bedford, Duke of, and his gar-
dener, anecdote of, 227, 228

Bedrooms, furnishing, 284, 285,
286

Beds in a garden, arrangement
of, 106

Beech-trees in autumn, 205

Beetroot, preparing and serving,

2
Bell-flower, 160
Berberis Darwinti, 97, 169
— vulgaris, 38, 39, 96, 169
Bible, the, Martin’s illustrations
of, 157
Biennials, 42, 113, 164, 165

A SURREY GARDEN

Bignonia radicans, 43, 104

Birds, feeding, 18; boxes for
117, 118

Biscuits, change of, 192

Blé de Turquie, 55

Blinds, 282

Blue-bells, 197

Bocconia cordata, 61, 119, 139,
199

Boltonia corynrbosa, 173

Bonaparte, Joséphine, and her
fondness for gardening, 207,
208

Bookcases, 278, 284, 285

Books on gardening, botany, &c. :
Robinson’s ‘English Flower
Garden,’ 1, et passim; ‘The
Vegetable Garden,’ 1,13; John-
son’s ‘ Gardener’s Dictionary,’
1, 2; Andrews’ ‘ Botanist’s
Repository,’ 20; Mrs. Loudon’s
‘Gardening for Ladies,’ 23;
Bright’s ‘ A Year in a Lanca-
shire Garden,’ 48, 49, 239;
Watson’s ‘Flowers and Gar-
dens,’ 48, 235-238; Curtis’s
‘ Botanical Magazine,’ 49, 62;
‘Hortus Floridus’ (1614), 50,
51; Parkinson’s ‘ Paradisi in
Sole,’ (1629), 51-54; Parkin-
son’s ‘Theatre of Plants’
(1640), 54-56; Gerarde’s ‘ The
Herbal or General Historie of
Plants’ (1633), 56-58; gar-
dener’s Almanack for 1691,
58,59; De laQuintinye’s‘ The
Compleat Gard’ner’ (1693),
59; ‘English Herbal,’ by
W. Salmon (1710), 59; Brad-
ley’s ‘New Improvements of
Planting and Gardening’
(1739), 59, 60; Dillenio’s
‘Hortus Elthamensis’ (1732),
60; ‘Uitgezochte Planten’
(1771), 60, 61; Curtis’ ‘ Flora
Londinensis’ (1771), 61 ; Eras-
mus Darwin’s ‘The Loves of
the Plants’ (1791), 62, 63,
124; Jacquin’s ‘ Miscellanea
Austriaca’ (1778), 63-65 ; Jac-
quin’s ‘Oxalis Monographia ’

rE Bors “ a,
Ee at Nad ee Md ne MET ag

INDEX 369

and ‘Plantarum Rariorum
Horti Cxsarei Schoenbrunnen-
sis,’ 66, 67; Martin’s ‘ Thirty-
eight Plates with Explanations’
(1794), 67; Stoever’s ‘ Life of
Sir Charles Linnzus,’ 67, 68 ;
Andrews’ ‘Botanist’s Reposi-
tory’ (1797), 68, 69; White’s
‘Natural History of Selborne,’
145, 146; Ventenat’s ‘Le
Jardin de la Malmaison,’ 207,
208; ‘La Botanique de J. J.
Rousseau,’ 208-210; ‘Les
Roses,’ by Redouté and Thorry,
209 ; Smith’s ‘ Exotic Botany,’
210, 211; Nicol’s ‘ Gardener’s
Kalendar,’ 211; Thornton’s
‘Small Family Herbal,’ 211;
Hill’s ‘Family Herbal,’ 211;
‘The New Botanic Garden,’
211, 212; Maund’s ‘ Botanic
Garden,’ 212,213; Chaumeton’s
‘Flore Médicale,’ 213, 214;
Greene’s ‘Universal Herbal,’
214-216; ‘ The Manse Garden,’
216; Sweet’s ‘Cistinew: the
Natural Order of Rock Rose,’
216,217; Loudon’s ‘Gardener’s
Magazine,’ 217, 218 ; Loudon’s
‘Arboretum Botanicum,’ 218,
219; Mrs. Loudon’s ‘Ladies’
Magazine of Gardening,’ 219 ;
‘Lady’s Companion,’ 219, 220;
‘Every Lady her own Flower
Gardener,’ 220; ‘Mémoires du
Musée d’Histoire naturelle,’
221; ‘Mémoires sur quelques
Espéces de Cactées,’ 221; John-
son’s ‘History of English
Gardening,’ 222; Felton’s ‘On
the Portraits of English Authors
on Gardening,’ 223; ‘The
Florist’s Journal and Garden-
ing Record,’ 223; Paxton’s
‘Magazine of Botany,’ 223-
225; Culpepper’s ‘Complete
Herbal,’ 225, 226; ‘ Language
of Flowers,’ 227; Herbert’s
‘ Amaryllidacer,’ 227; ‘ Pine-
tum Woburnensis,’ 227, 228;

Mott’s ‘Flora Odorata,’ 228, |

229; Pratt’s ‘Flowers and
their Associations’ and ‘ Field,
Garden, and Woodland,’ 229;
Paul’s ‘The Rose Garden,’
229; Newman’s ‘History of
British Ferns,’ 229 ; Williams’
‘Ferns and Lycopods,’ 229;
Hibberd’s ‘Profitable Garden-
ing,’ 230; Deakin’s ‘Flora of
the Colosseum of Rome,’ 230;
Stone’s ‘ Beautiful - leaved
Plants,’ 230; Robinson’s ‘Parks,
Promenades, and Gardens of
Paris,’ ‘Subtropical Garden,’
and ‘ Alpine Flowers for English
Gardens,’ 231, 232; Robinson’s
‘Wild Garden,’ 232, 233;
Vilmorin-Andrieux’s ‘ Vege-
table Garden,’ 233; sixth
edition of ‘English Flower
Garden,’ 233; ‘God’s Acre
Beautiful,’ 233,234; Robinson’s
‘Garden Design’ and ‘ Archi-
tects’ Gardens,’ 235; Smee’s
‘My Garden: its Plan and
Culture,’ 238; Wooster’s ‘ Al-
pine Plants,’ 238; Hazlitt’s
‘Gleanings from Old Garden
Literature,’ 239; Hope’s ‘ Notes
and Thoughts on Gardens and
Woodlands,’ 239, 240 ; Wood’s
‘Hardy Perennials, 240;
‘Days and Hours in a Garden,’
240, 241; Hllwanger’s ‘The
Garden’s Story,’ 241, 242;
Sachs’ ‘History of Botany,’
242; Rivers’ ‘ Miniature Fruit
Garden,’ 242; Piggott’s ‘ Gar-
den of Japan,’ 242; Hole’s
‘Book about the Garden and
the Gardener,’ 242, 243; Platt’s
‘Tialian Gardens,’ 243, 244;
Von Marilaun’s ‘ Natural His-
tory of Plants,’ 244; Ellacombe’s
‘In a Gloucestershire Garden,’
245; Grant Allen’s ‘Story of
the Plants,’ 245; Mitford’s
‘Bambo Garden,’ 246; Miss
Amherst’s ‘ History of Garden.
ing in England,’ 246; Karr’s
‘ Voyage autour de mon Jardin,’
BB

370 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

247; Sieveking’s ‘Praise of
Gardens,’ 247; Austin’s ‘The
Garden that I Love,’ 247;
‘Gardens and Garden Craft’
(‘Edinburgh Review’), 247;
papers in ‘ Journal of the Royal
Horticultural Society,’ 247,
248 ; ‘The Garden’ (periodical),
235; ‘Cottage Gardening’
(periodical), 234, 248; Mr. J.
Conder’s‘ The Flowers of Japan
and the Art of Floral Arrange-
ment,’ Appendix, 353

Books on treatment in sickness,
food, nursing, &c., 304, 305

Borders, garden, 92, 134, 151,
152, 181, 183, 196

Botany, works on, see Books on
gardening and botany

Bottling gooseberries, 109

Bouvardias, 162

Box, common, 38, 169

Boys, training of, 257-275

‘Breakfast’ parties, 196

Bright’s ‘ A Year in a Lancashire
Garden,’ 48, 49

Brooms, 117

Browning, Mrs., anecdote of, 344

Brussels sprouts, 41

Buddleia globosa, 45, 84, 169

Bulbs, forcing, 23; market for,
72; selection of, 102, 131;
method of growing, 105;
potting, 123, 181

Buphthalmum cordifolium, 136

‘Burning bush,’ 118

Buttercup, water, 89

CaBBacE, red, pickled, 176

Cactuses, 120, 121, 221

Cakes, receipts for, 81, 82, 187

Calceolaria amplexicaulis, 114

Caleeolarias for window-boxes,
201

Calvary clover, 42

Calycanthus precox, 43

Camellia, 229

Campanula garganica, 164

— grandis, 125

— medium. 113

Campanula persicifolia, 113, 124

— pyramidalis, 113

— ranunculus, 160

— turbinata, 132

Canary-seed on moss, growing,
12513

Candour in children, inculcation
of, 261

Candytuift, 83

Caneton a1l’orange, receipt for, 79

Cannabis sativa, 75, 165

Cannas, 50

Canterbury bells, 113, 125

Cape flowering bulbs, 12, 19, 181

— type-plant, 20

Cardoons, how to cook,
Chaumeton on, 213, 214

Carnations, in hanging pots, 98
112; treatment of, 136; 138
replanting, 165, 166, 184

Carpets, use of, 279, 281

Carriage-drives to houses, 170

Carrots, cooking, 175, 176, 187

Cauliflower, serving, 126

Ceanothus ceruleus, 45

— grandiflorus (Gloire de Ver-
sailles), 44

Celeriac, 14

Céleris en branches, demi-glacés,
receipt for, 37

Celery, with beetroot, 25; pre-
paration of, 37

Cercis, 45

Cherries, double, pruning, 117;
Morella, 175; winter, 10

Cherry brandy, 175

Chervil, 82, 97

Chestnuts, Spanish, 6;
horse, 144; cooking, 182

Chickens, cooking, 174; stewed,
186; served cold, 254, 255

Chicory, leaves of the, 95

Children, training of, 257-275,
318-352; feeding of, 270; their.
life at the beginning of the
century, 273; decorating their

14;

dwarf

own rooms, 287; their
health, 302; capability for
suffering, 319; bad temper,

327; their attentions to the
old, 246

INDEX

Chimonanthus fragrans, 11, 19,
43, 158

China-roses, 4

Chive-tops, 97

Chloroform, use of, 296

Choisya ternata, 18, 19, 43, 169;
pruning, 117

Chorozemia, 11

Chrysanthemums, for table de-
coration, 13; replanting, 74,
132, 143; arrangement, 190

Chutney, receipt for, 126

Cineraria cruenta, 20

Cinerarias, 11, 20

Cistuses, 84, 216

Cleanliness in the house, 281

Clematis, 43, 95, 118, 139

Clematis montana, 43, 117

Clethra, 93, 113, 144

Cocos weddeliana, 9

Coffee, making, 15, 16

Colchicums, 180

Collinsonia, 63

Colosseum of Rome, plants and
flowers of the, 230

Colour-blindness, 162

Columbines, 169

Compotes, 120, 127, 175, 186,
254

Consommé, 28, 29

— aux ailerons, 30

Convalescence, 300, 302

‘Convent eggs,’ receipt for, 108

Convoloulus mauritanicus, 164

Cooking, book on, 2; in France,
78, 80; mistakes in English,
81. (See also under the names
of various dishes)

Coreopsis grandiflora, 136

— lanceolata, 134

Cotoneasters, 44, 169

Cotton, rosemary-leaved lavender,
210

—- plant, and the myth of the
‘vegetable lamb,’ 53

Crab, mayonnaise soufflé of, 125

Crab apple, Siberian, 92,99; prun-
ing, 117; preserving, 176, 177

Cranberries, American, how to
cook, 14, 15

— Norwegian, 15

37%

Crategus pyracantha lelandi, 44

Creepers for house-fronts, &c.,
43-46, 157; for autumn, 190,
191

Cremation, 233, 234

Créme brtilée pudding, 77

Crocuses, 179, 180, 197

Cross, floral, 20

Crown Imperials, 71

Cryptomeria japonica, 163, 201

Cucumber, serving, 126; cooking,
126

Currant bushes, protection of,
129

Currant jelly, red, 129

Curry, making, 108

— of ham toast, 109; of
duck and fish, 251, 252

— powder, receipt for, 108

Curtains, 282, 286

Curtis’s ‘ Flora Londinensis’ and
‘Botanical Magazine,’ 49,61, 62

Cut-flower decoration, 10 and
note, 12, 13, 75, 106, 138; list
of flowers, &c., for, 192, 193;
Appendix, 353-365

Cyclamens, 17, 24

Cydonia, 44

Darroptits, 17, 72

‘ Dainty Dishes,’ 2 e¢ passim

Daisies, Michaelmas, 74, 75, 114,
132, 143, 173, 205

Dante, and Voltaire’s cynical re-
mark, 206

Daphne Cneorum, 97

Darwin, Erasmus, and ‘ vege-
table lamb,’ 53; and ‘ The
Loves of the Plants,’ 62, 63,
124

Daturas, 169, 180

Daughters, education and train-
ing of, 317-352

Decorating house and tables, 10_
13, 75, 106, 138 ; list of flowers
for, 192, 193; Appendia, 353-
365

Delphiniums, 134

D’Epinay, Madame, her views on
woman’s education, 328

BB 2

372 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Desmodium penduliflorum, 92

Deutzia crenata, 106

— elegans, 96

— gracilis, 10

Diosma shrubs, 181, 182

Double flowers compared with
single, 237

Draperies for rooms, 283, 284

Dress, 340-342

Dried fruit, cooking, 256

— leaves, scented, 8

Drugs, danger of excess in the
use of, 303, 304

Dual nature, the, in women, 345,
346

Duck, boiled, receipt for, 79, 80;
minced and curried, 251, 252

Dutch garden for a lawn, 139,
140, 141

Harty rising, 349

Ficheveria retusa, 12

Edinburgh, National Gallery of,
156, 157

Education, of boys, 259-262; of
girls, 317, 319 -332

Eggs, receipt for cooking, 108

Elder, 153

Eliot, George, on nursing the
sick, 297, 298

Entertainments, social, 350

Eipilobium, 75

Epimediums, 99

Hrigeron spectosus, 143

Eschscholtzias, 165

Eucalyptus, 16

Eulalias, 119

Tivergreens, Mme. de Staél’s de-
scription of, 19; climbing, 43 ;
in pots, 115; to be avoided in
London, 194

Everlasting flowers, 7, 132

Hxochorda grandiflora, 93

Extravagant wives, 339

Faps, avoidance of, in training
children, 259

Fasteners for flowers, Appendix,
357, 362

Feeding of children, 270

Ferns for London gardens, 198

Fertilisation of plants, 63

Ficus elastica, 8, 9 ‘

— elastica indica, 8, 9

Fig-trees, 196

Finger-bowls, flowers in, 192

Fireplaces, 279, 280

Fish, cooking, 41,42; marinaded,
82; decline in consumption
after the Reformation, 147,
148

Fishermen taking to piracy after
the Reformation, 148

Flax, blue, 75

Floor, painted, 281, 284 ; cover-
ings for, 279, 281, 284

‘Flora lLondinensis,’ Curtis’s,
61

Flower fasteners, Appendix, 357,
362

Flowers, packing, 107

Foam-flower, 103

Fog in the country, 188

Food and health, 304, 305

Forcemeat, receipt for, 33, 34

Forget-me-nots, 89, 140, 184, 198

Forsythia fortunet, 44, 70, 196

— suspensa, 43, 70, 196

Fountains, 92, 140, 141

Foxgloves, 170

Freesias, 12, 17, 123

French country-house, a, house-
keeping in, 78

— novels, recommended for
mothers, 262

— pie, 80

— receipts for soups, sauces,
poultry, jellies, &c., 28-37,
79-82

Friendships, early, 274, 335, 336

Fritillarias, 105

Frost, on window-panes, 21, 22;
methods for keeping out, 99,
198, 189

Fruit, increase in its cultivation,
242: dried, and how to cook
it, 256; bavarois of, 256

Fuchsia procumbens, 163, 164

Fuchgias, 112

Fumitory, 161

a

eo = : f
Se eS oe ee ee

INDEX

Furnishing and managing houses,
276-288 ; books on the subject,
276, 277; ‘Lectures’ and
views of W. Morris, 277-281 ;
the rule of simplicity, 278;
fireplaces and tiled hearths,
279, 280 ; pianos, 280; the use
of Sanitas, 280; cleanliness,
281; second-hand goods, 281,
282 ; blinds and curtains, 282 ;
whitewashed and draped walls,
283, 284; bookcases, 284;
articles for bedrooms, 284,
285; baths, 285 ; bedding, 286;
pictures, 287; children’s tastes,
287; tables, 287, 288

GaILLaRDIAs, 134, 136

Gainsborough, portrait of Mrs.
Grahame by, 156

Garden, an old-fashioned, 4, 5,
236; plan of author’s, 87-93;
planning and laying out a
small; 106, 141; 149; 169);
taking notes of a, 137

Gardening, in winter, 17-19; as
an employment for women, 40;
advance of knowledge on, 60;
love and watchfulness in, 75 ;
in France, 83, 84; monastic,
147, 149; inthe north of Eng-
land and Scotland, 151-153,
157, 158; topiary, 159; wild,
170, 171, 232, 233 ; in London,
194-201; an occupation for
the elderly, 245

Garlic, use of, 251

Garrya elliptica, 43

Gascony butter, 108

Generosity and its counterfeit,
266

Gentians, 76

Geranium, sweet, leaves of, 8;
placed on water, 11; grown in

pots, 113
Geraniums, double red, for table-
decoration, 13; in hanging

pots, 98; grown in pots, 111,
112; planting out, 120, 121;
ivy-leaved, 164; for London, 198

373

Gerarde’s ‘ The Herbalor General
Historie of Plants,’ 56-58

‘Giant’ cultivation, 41

Gilbert, Mr., sculpture by, 291

Girls, as amateur artists, 307-
316; increase in their educa-
tional advantages, 309; their
education, 317-332; thinking
about marriage, 327-330 ; their
liberty and independence, 330;
higher education, 331, 332;
what they should read, 332,
333; allowances for, 338, 339 ;
their dress, 340, 342

Gladioli, 69

Gloriosa superba, 123, 124

Gloucester, Duke of, and the
Lady Anne, picture of, 293

Gnocchi 4 la créme, 30, 31

Gold-fish in garden tanks, 141

Gooseberries, bottled, 109; in
Scotland, 152

Gourds, 7, 8

Governesses, training of, 319, 320

Grahame, Mrs., Gainsborough’s
portrait of, 156

Grasses, Japanese, 93

Greenhouse, plants for, 7, 25, 72,
73, 123, 124,163, 165, 173, 181

Gypsophila paniculata, 136

— gracilis, time for sowing
42, 94, 184

Ham toast, curry of, 109
Hampton Court Palace, the
creeper on the turrets of, 158
Handwriting, good, importance
of, 331

Hare, roast, German receipt for
82

Haricot of mutton, 252

Haricot blanc, 185

Hashed mutton, 251

Health question, the, in the
training of children, 258, 270;
books on, 304, 305

Heaths, 69

Helianthemums, 84, 216, 217

Helianthuses, 50

Helichrysum bracteatum, 7

374 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Hellebore, 50

Hemp plant, 75, 165

Hepaticas, 77

‘Herbal or General Historie of
Plants, The,’ Gerarde’s, 56-58

Herbs, science of, in past and
present times, 56, 61

Fleuchera sanguinea, 73, 169

Higher education of women, 331,
332

Holland House Gardens, 199

Holly, for table decoration, 13;
berries of, 204

Hollyhocks, 163

Home-life, and the training of
children, 259 ; and furnishing,
decorating, and domestic
management, 276-288; pro-
fessional nursing a cause of its
deterioration, 296, 297

Honesty, seed-vessels of, 7

Honeysuckle, 4; Dutch, 43, 93;
pruning, 117, 139

‘Hortus Mloridus,’ 50, 51

Hospitals versws home-nursing,
298

House-fronts, creepers for, 43-46

Housekeepers, advice to, on
hospitality, 255; hints to,
347, 348

Houses, fittings and furniture for,
276-288

Housewives, a book for, 277

Humea elegans, 163

Hyacinths, 11, 23, 72, 197

Hydrangea paniculata grandi-
flora, 131, 199

Hydrangeas, 114

Tennis gibraltarica, 83

Icebergs, and their effect on tem-
perature, 198

Imantophilums, 25, 26, 73

Impatiens glandulifera, 161

Independence, habits of, impor-
tance of training children in,
258, 259; of young women,
380, 336, 337

India-rubber plants, 8

Indian corn, and its cultivation
by Red Indians, 55, 56

Iris, 25, 140, Japanese, 89;
German, 100,105, 197; Span-
ish, 135, 184, 197; English,
135

Irishman, the, and his trans-
formed cottage, 94

Italy, gardens in, 243, 244

Ivy, common, potting and train-
ing for indoor purposes, 8;
on house-fronts, 42 ; Japanese,
158

Ixias, 69

Jackmant, 119

Jacquin, N. J., life and botanical
works of, 63-67

Jam, rhubarb, 96; strawberry,
120; crab, 176, 177; quince,
184

‘Janet’s Repentance,’ quotation
on nursing the sick from, 297,
298

Japan, chrysanthemum shows in,
189; gardens in, 242

Japanese art of arranging cut
flowers, Appendix, 353-365

— vases, 10 and note, 201;
Appendia, 360

Jasmine, yellow, 44; white, 104,
196

Jasminum nudiflorwm, 11, 19,
43, 158, 196

Jekyll, Miss, papers on a Surrey
garden by, 250, 251

Jews-mallow, 95

Jonquils, 17; forcing, 23

Judas tree, 45

Juggler, mental training of a, 4

Julienne soup, 29, 30

Kuemprent, 89

Kerrias, 95, 119

Kitchen, the, management of,
78

Kitchen garden, 86, 135

Lasurnums, pruning, 117
Lachenalia aurea, 19, 182

i

a
Se

ae

SSS ee

INDEX

Lamb-plant, the, myth of, 52, 53

Lancaster, its general appearance
and canal, 159

Lard, a substitute for, 78

Laurels, 19, 167, 180

Lavender, 8, 104

Lawns, objections to, 138; break-
ing up, 138, 139, 142, 169

Leaves, dried, for perfuming
rooms, 8

Leighton, Lord, last work by, 292

Leonotis leonurus, 182

L épée de la Vierge, 131

‘Leper’s Wite, the,’ picture of,
293, 294

Letters, prompt answers to, 331

Lettuce, 37, 97

Leucojwm vernum, 24

Leycesteria formosa, 119

Liberalism defined, 146

Libraries, gardening, for villages,
248

Lilac Daphne, 39

Lilacs, 100; pruning, 117

Lilium auratum, 163

— candidum, 130

— chalcedomicum, 200

Lily, St. Bruno’s, 9; creeping,
123, 124; Madonna, 130, 184;
of the valley, 133, 200 ; water,
141

Limmanthes Douglas, 164, 184

Linarias, 75

Lind, Jenny, anecdote of, 154

Linneus, 60; his ‘Life’ and
works, 67, 68

Linnea borealis, 69

Linums, 74

Lobelia, 142, 143, 188, 198

London, gardening in, 194-201;
a day in, 289-295

— Pride, 106, 169, 187, 188, 198

Loudon, Mrs., story of her
marriage, and her works, 218-
221

— J.C., works of, 217-219

Love-in-the-mist, time for sow-
ing, 42, 184; 63, 94, 95

Love-lies-bleeding, 113

‘Loves of the Plants,
Darwin’s, 62, 63, 124

The,’ : |

375

Luncheon dishes: mayonnaise
soufflé of crab, 125; tomatoes
with mayonnaise sauce, &ec.,
125

Micun, 24, 25

Magnolia conspicua, 44, 171,196

— grandiflora, 12, 43, 196

— purpurea, 44

— stellata, 44, 171

Maigre dishes, 80, 81

Maize, and its cultivation by Red
Indians, 55, 56

Manure, 11, 17, 18, 41, 144

Marguerites, French, 112, 201

Marigolds, 132,188, 189, 198, 205

Marmalade, orange, making, 27

Marriage, preparation for, 327

30

Marriages, poor, 273, 274

Martin’s illustrations of the
Bible, 157

Marvels of Peru, 50

Mayonnaise sauce, 25

Meconopsis, 128

Megaseas, 169, 184

Melon compote, 186

Mesembryanthemums, 164

Mezerewm, 39

Mignonette, time for sowing, 42,
165; 197

Mill, J. S., on education, 335

Mint, 98

Model, artist’s, in the Academy,
294, 295

Money, the value of, importance
of teaching boys, 263-266

Montbretias, 112

Moral faults, lenient views of,
B51, 852

Morley, Mr. John, on excessive
addiction to pleasure and sport,
271; on success, 272; on
popular culture, 325

Morris, W., his ‘ Lectures on Art’
and ideas on house-furnishing,
277-280

Mothers, tact of, 269, 322; their
ignorance of their children,
318; hints to, 321-324, 3328

376 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Mousse de foies gras a la gelée,
receipt for, 36

— de volaille, receipt for, 34

Mulberries, 139

Museums, private, advantages of,
155

Music as a sociable hobby, 310

Musk, 165

Mutton, hashed, 251; haricot of,
252

Myrtles, 112, 114

Myth, of the ‘ vegetable lamb,’
52, 53; of the ‘Barnacle
Geese,’ 57, 58

Narcissus, 16; forcing, 23, 72

Narcissus poeticus, 105

Nasturtiums, 46, 198

National Gallery of Edinburgh,
156, 157

Natural History of Selborne,’

145, 146

Nerines, 181

Nettles, preparing and cooking, 26

Nicotiana, 50

Nitrate of soda, usefulness of, 173

North, Miss, flower-painting of,
244

Norway, plantsin, 153; compared
with Scotland, 156

Nouilles fraiches, receipt for,
36, 37

Novel-reading for girls, 333

Novels, French, recommended
for mothers, 262

Nursery, the, making up, 74, 75

Nurses, sick: their difficult posi-
tion as servants of the doctor,
298; their hard life, 299, 300;
discretion required in selecting
them, 300; temptations to
which they are exposed, 301 ;
hardening effect of their train-
ing, 301; in France, 301

Nursing the sick, 296-302

Oaks, 6

Old-fashioned garden, an, 4, 5,
236

Old maid, French, visit to a, 83

Old times compared with the pre-
sent, 145, 146, 273

Oleanders, 112, 113

Omphalodes verna, 71

Onions, 97, 98

Ophiopogon spicatus, 173

Orange, mock, 45

— compote, 254

Orchid-growing on a small scale,
249, 288

Ornithogalum, 72, 131

Ox-tail soup, 80, 81

Oxalises, 66, 215

Pack1ne cut-flowers, 107

Painting, effect of the Reforma-
tion on, 149, 150

Pampas grass, 16

Pandanus veitchir, 9

Pansies, 198

‘Paradisi in Sole,’ Parkinson’s,
51-54

Parents, influence of, 259, 260,
262, 268, 269, 333, 346; ignor-
ance regarding their children,
318

Parkinson’s ‘ Paradisi in Sole,’
51-54; ‘Theatre of Plants,’
54-56

Parnassia, 63

Parsley, decorating with, 82

Parsnip, giant, 120

Partridge, stewed, 186

Paste, making, for French and
other dishes, 30-33

Pastry, preparing and baking, 27

Paté A Ravioli, receipt for, 32

Paul, Mrs. Kegan, article on
‘Paradisi in Sole’ by, 53, 54

Pavia, 144

Paxton, Sir Joseph, his influence
on English gardening, 224, 225

Peas, green, for purée, 25 ; stewed,
129; late, 174

Pelargoniums, 20, 21, 69, 120

Percolators for making coffee, 15,
16

Perennials, time for sowing, 134
watering, 143

Pergolas, 45, 98,

INDEX

Periwinkles, 169
Phalangium liliago variegatum,

9

Pheasant, stewed, 186

Philadelphus grandiflorus, 45

Philanthropy, amateur, to be
discouraged, 308, 309

Phloxes, 74, 75, 132, 143

Physalis Alkekengi, 10

Pianos, 279, 280

Pictures, in houses, 278, 279,
287; in the Royal Academy,
292-294

Pie, French, 80

Pig lilies, 74

Pigeons, cooking, 174,
flight of, 206

Pilea muscosa, 163

Pinks, 140, 143, 184, 198

Piptanthus nepalensis, 45

Piracy, increase of, after the
Reformation, 147, 148

Pleasure, excessive addiction to,
271

Plum, double, 10

Plumbago larpente, 161

Poems quoted or alluded to:
‘I remember, I remember,’ 5;
‘Go where the water glideth,’
&e., by J. H. Reynolds, 5, 6;
Shelley’s description of damp,
17; lines on the death of a
young girl, 20; ‘John Frost,’
21, 22; ‘The Poet in the City,’
46, 47; Erasmus Darwin on
the ‘vegetable lamb,” 53;
Darwin’s ‘ Loves of the Plants,’
62, 63; Owen Meredith’s de-
scription of a garden in spring,
85; ‘Baby Seed Song,’ 87;
Mrs. Hemans’ ‘To the Blue
Anemone,’ 101, 102; Paul
Verlaine’s ‘La Vie,’ 133, 134;
Emerson’s lines on _ shells,
155; lines to the redbreast,
178, 179; Milton on the rising
sun, 188; Keats’ ‘St. Agnes’
Eve,’ 189; ‘La Mélancolie,’
206, 207; Mr. Ruskin’s ‘ Mont
Blanc revisited,’ 231; Matthew
Arnold’s Obermann Poems,

Wa |

377

232; memorial poem by Sir
Henry Taylor, 268; James
Spedding’s ‘ Antiquity of Man,’
274, 275; Myr. Lionel Tenny-
son’s ‘Sympathy,’ 306; ‘Omar
Khayyam,’ 352

Polyanthus, 164

Polygonum affine, 161

— cuspidatum, 92, 119, 199, 205

— sacchalinense, 119, 199

Pomegranate, double, 112

Pond-weed, 141

Ponds, natural, 171

Poppies, Oriental, 5; time for
sowing, 42; for decoration,
106; Plume, 119; Welsh, 128,
160

Portraits in the Royal Academy,
292

Pot au feu soup, 28

Pot-powrri, a receipt for, 241, 242

Potage paysanne, receipt for, 79

Potatoes, cooking, 18, 98, 252
253

Pots, plants in, and evaporation,
98; hanging, 98; growing
plants in, 110-115

Poultry, preparing and roasting,

Primroses, 140, 164, 199

Primula japonica, 89

— sieboldii, 72

— simensis, 11

Primulas, for table decoration,
13 ; Chinese, 24; Japanese, 89

Privet, 169, 195

Procosma variegata, 114

Proteas, 68

Protection for plants, 144, 198
199

Pruning, shrubs, 116, 117, 180;
instruments for, 181

Prunus, double, 105

— spinosa flore pleno, 10

Public schools, training of, 259

Pudding, receipt for a, 77

Purée, 25, 26

Pyracanthuses, 44, 204

Pyrethrum, 173

Pyrus japonica, 43, 44 ; pruning,
117; Appendix, 364

378 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

QuINcE jam, 184, 185

Rassrr’s Ears plant, 104, 105

Rain-water, storage of, 137, 288

Ranunculus lingua, 89

Ravioli, preparation for, 32, 33

Reading of novels by girls, 333

Redbreast, the, tameness of, 178 ;
lines to, 178, 179

Reformation, the, its effect on the
cultivation of gardens, con-
sumption of vegetables and
fish, 147, 148

Rhododendrons, 96, 167, 237

Rhubarb, receipt for cooking, 26,
27; jam, 96

Rhus cotinus, 118

Ribbon-borders, 151

Ribes sanguinum, 104, 196

Rice for curry, to boil, 108, 109

Richter, J. P. F., on an unhappy
marriage, 329, 330

Risotto, Italian receipts for, 107,

253, 254
Robinson, W., his ‘English
Flower Garden’ and _ other

works, 1, 231, 233-235, 248

Robinsoniana, 72

Rochea falcata, 163

Rock-roses, 84, 85, 216

Rockery, making a, 88-90

Rockets, double, 5,73; single, 103

Rooms, plants and flowers for,
7-13; letting the autumn sun
into, 202

Rose, Réve d’Or, 43 ; La Marque,
43, 137; Maréchal Niel, 43;
McCartney, 45 ; Aimée Vibert,
45; Gloire des Rosemaines,
45; Fallenberg, 45; tea, 88,
140, 205; moss, 93; Glona
Mundi, 95; Cottage-maid,
95; De Meaux, 95; cabbage,
95, 209; Ayrshire, 139; Mal-
maison, 209; Banksia, 209;
Christmas, 18; lucida, 209;
‘Bourbon, 229

Rosemary, 104

Roses, Redouté’s illustrations of,
209

Royal Academy of Arts, pictures
and sculpture in, 291-295

— Horticultural Society, spring
exhibition of, 23, 24 ; member-
ship of, 24

Ruling by force, 267, 268

Rush, sweet-smelling,141; flower-
ing, 141

Ruskin, Mr.,

on gathering
flowers, 4

Sr. Joun’s Wort, 169

‘St. Luke’s Summer,’ 188

Salads, 24, 25, 95, 96, 97, 254

Salpiglossis, 165

Salsifys, cooking, 13

Salvias, 173, 174

Sambucus racemosa, 153

Sanitas in a house, use of, 280

Sargent, Mr., Portrait of a Lady,
292

Sauce, Béchamel, 25, 31, 32;
mayonnaise, 25; supréme, 34,
35; fish, 107; for wild duck,
253

Savins, 139

Saxifraga granulata flore pleno,
73

— wallacei, 73

Saxifrages, 24, 105, 138, 140,
184, 187, 198

Scabiosa caucasica, 184

Scabious, 132

Scarlet runners, preserving, 150 ;
flavour of, 174; cooking, 176,
185; growing, 205

Schizophragma hydrangeoides, 46

Schizostylis coccinea, 187

Schools, and the training of boys,
259, 260

Scilla campanulata, 105

Scillas, 24, 72, 197

Scotland, a trip to, 151-158

Sculpture of Mr. Gilbert, 291

Scythian lamb, the, myth of, 52
53

Sea-birds in Scotland, 154

Seaweed, the Laver, as a vegetable
dish, 253

| Second-hand furniture, 281, 282

INDEX

Sedum spectabile, 132

Seedlings, treatment of, 165

Servants and their management,
348, 349

Shading a window, 194

Shelter in gardens, 99

Shrubberies, flowers in, 151;
treatment of, 166,167; thinning
out, 168 ; edging for, 169, 181

Sickness, nursing in, 296-302;
often caused by excess in taking
drugs, 303, 304

Silene, 106, 184

Simplicity in house-furnishing,
278

Simpson, Sir James, and his
brothers, story of, 266

Smith, Sydney, one of the sayings
of, 335

Smoking indoors, 276, 277

Snapdragons, 134, 135, 170, 184

Snowdrops, 20, 24, 197

Snowflakes, 24

Social entertainments, 350, 351

Solanum jasminoides, 17, 113

Sorrel, 76

Soup, purée, 25; pot au feu, 28;
consommé, 28, 29; julienne,
29,30; consemmé aux ailerons,
30; paysanne, 79; ox-tail, 80,
81; onion, 83, 126 ; cauliflower,
126; artichoke, 203

Southernwood, 94

Spanish Armada, and a tradition
on the coast of Scotland, 155,
156

Sparmannia africana, 182

Spencer, Mr. Herbert, book on
education by, 328

Spiderworts, 103, 104

Spirea aruncus, 5

— thunbergi, 93

Spireeas, 93, 206

Sprayer for watering, 76

Stachys lanata, 104, 105

Staél, Mme. de, her description
of evergreens, 19; on parents
and children, 334

Stapelias, 122

Stewed meats, 252

Stewpans, 16

379

Strawberries, selection of varie-
ties and growing, 120; com
pote of, 120

Suburbs, living in the, advan-
tages of, 289, 290

Success, meaning of, 272

Succession duties, and allow-
ances to children, 266

Suet, boiled, for frying purposes,
78

Sumach, Venetian, 118, 139

Sundials, 94, 140

Sunflowers, 50, 86

Sunsets, 91

‘ Superficial’ education, 325,326

Surrey, soil and climate of, 17

Swanley Horticultural College,
39, 40

Sweet-peas, 165

Sweet pepper bush, 93, 113, 144

Sweet Sultans, time for sowing,
42

Sweetbriar, 4, 104

Sweetness and light ina house,
280

Sweets with meat, eating, 15

TasLeE decoration, 10-13, 75, 106,
138; list of flowers, &c., for,
192, 193; Appendix, 353-365

Tables, 287, 288

Tagetes, 132

Tamarisks, 119

Tanks for the garden, 137, 140,
141

Tarragon, 97, 98

Tarts, making, 27

Taylor, Sir Henry, ‘ Notes from
Life’ and other works by, 268,
269

Teetotalism, benefits of, 304

Telekia speciosa, 136

Temper in children, treatment
of, 327

Temple Gardens flower shows,
24, 103

‘ Theatre of Plants,’ Parkinson’s,
54-56

Tiarella cordifolia, 103, 169

380 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Tiepolo, paintings of, 156, 157

Tomatoes, with mayonnaise
sauce, &c., 125; stewed when
unripe, 175

Tomtits, arrangement for feed-
ing, 18

Topiary gardening, 159

Tradescantia virgunica, 103, 161

Training of children, 257-275

Trees, destroyed in Sutherland-
shire, 153, 154

Tricuspidata, 158

Tropeolum speciosum, 46, 152

Truthfulness, and the training of
children, 260, 261

Tuberoses, 162

Tubs, growing plants in, 110,
111

Tulip gesneriana, 96

Tulips, forcing, 23 ; varieties, 72,
103 ; history, 96; in the au-
tumn, 184

Turf, substitutes for, 84, 169; to
be avoided in London, 195

Turkeys, natives of America, 15

Turnip-tops, preparing and cook-
ing, 26

Turnips, cooking, 187

VasEs, Japanese, 10 and note,
Appendix, 360

‘ Vegetable lamb,’ the, myth of,
52, 53

Vegetables, dressing and cooking,
Selo Ane 6.6 2p. 26.044 icy
U75 LiGy Leh LS 7.020a,. 2025
253; for soups, 25, 28-30, 41,
76, 126, 203; neglect of their
cultivation after the Reforma-
tion, 147, 149

Vegetarianism, benefits of, 304

Verbascums, 134

Verbena, sweet, leaves of, 8; for
walls, 45; cultivation, 99, 100;
for London, 198

Veronica spicata, 132

Veronicas, 84, 114, 249

Viburnum, pruning, 117, 169

Villagers’ gardens, 243

Vine, claret-coloured, 45, 95,
139

Vines, taking cuttings of, 104;
for window-shading, 194

Violas, 138, 187, 198

Violets, giant (‘ Princess Bea-
trice ’), 19; Neapolitan, 11, 73,
172, 205; white dog-tooth, 105;
Marie Louise, 172; Czar, 173;
grown in Dutch gardens, 183

Virginia creeper, 157; in London,
194, 195

Vitis coignetic, 45

— vulpina, 66

Vol-au-vent au maigre, 81

Voltaire, his cynical remark on
Dante, 206

WALLFLOWERS, 164, 184; time
for planting, 200

Walls, creepers for, 43-46, 157;
whitewashed, for rooms, 283

Water buttercup, 89

Water-plants, 141

Watereress, 83

Watering, 76, 143, 196, 199

Watson, Forbes, his ‘ Flowers
and Gardens,’ and some of his
opinions, 235-238

Wax for fruit-bottles, 109, 110

Weather, whims of the, 70

Weeding, 90, 116

Weigelias, pruning, 117

West aspect for country houses,
91

Wheat-growing on moss, 12, 13

Whims of the weather, 70

White’s ‘Natural History of
Selborne,’ 145, 146

Whitewashed walls, advantages —

of, 283

Whitings, French method of
cooking, 41, 42

Wild gardens, 170, 171, 232, 233

Willow- weed, 75

Window, shading a, 194

Window-boxes in London, 200,
201

Winter gardening, 7, 17-19

Le aS

INDEX

Wistaria, trained over posts, 42,
43; for window-shading, 194
Wives, extravagant, 339; duties
of, 339, 340; intellectual occu-
pation for, 343; with pro-
fessions, 344, 345

Women, as thinkers, 3; garden-
ing as an employment for, 40;
as sick nurses, 299, 300; as
amateur artists, 307-316 ; their
education, 317-352; higher
education, 331, 332; and the
power of character, 340

381

Work amongst the poor, ama-
teurs to be discouraged from,
308, 309

Wreaths, funeral, 20

‘Yrar ina Lancashire Garden,
A,’ Bright’s, 48, 49, 239

Yews, 169

Youth and age contrasted, 274,
275

ZAvscHNeER!IA californica, 223.

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