other day—which should contain only flowers known to Chaucer, would be extremely disappointing. However, bedding-out can take very good care of itself, and Chaucerian gardens will not be largely popular. Meanwhile, I sincerely hope that flowering shrubs and hardy herbaceous plants may be far more generally grown and cared for than they are at present. It has seemed on the whole best to leave this Essay as it was written. I have made a few verbal corrections and inserted one or two short sentences, and that is all. I have, however, added illustrative Notes on points which seemed of some little interest. CONTENTS. PAGE LOVE OF GARDENING 1 EARLY ENGLISH GARDENS 3 TOPIARIAN WORK 8 LANDSCAPE GARDENERS 11 BEDDING-OUT 16 CARPET-BEDDING 23 SPRING GARDENING 26 THE SEMI-TROPICAL GARDEN 27 THE ALPINE GARDEN 29 FOUNTAINS 31 THE WILD GARDEN 32 THE SHRUBBERY 35 HARDY SHRUBS 39 THE WALLED GARDEN 43 OLD HERBALS 45 FLOWERS OF WINTER 47 SPRING FLOWERS 49 ROSES 51 SUMMER FLOWERS 52 BIRDS AND BUTTERFLIES 55 EXPLORERS 57 BOTANISTS 60 GARDEN ASSOCIATIONS 65 FLOWER PAINTING 67 FLOWER SHOWS 71 THE INTEREST OF THE GARDEN 74 NOTES. I. THE GARDENER BOWER-BIRD 78 II. ARS TOPIARIA 82 III. A POET’S FLOWER-BED 86 IV. THE EVENING PRIMROSE 87 V. THE CHRISTMAS ROSE 92 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. AS spring comes on, the fancy of any man who cares about a garden, “lightly turns to thoughts” of flowers and the gardens where they grow. Never, perhaps, was the art of gardening so popular,—I wish we could say so intelligent,—as at present. The stately homes of England, the villas that line the roads of suburban districts, the cottages clustering round a village green, often even a back yard or window-sill in the heart of some manufacturing town, all testify in their different ways to the desire of having an adornment of flowers. Indeed this desire, as Bacon long ago pointed out, in his famous and often-quoted essay, is as old as man himself; or, if any one prefer to trace back the instinct, not to the Garden of Eden, but to the habits of a bird, he may be reminded of the Gardener Bower-bird (_Amblyornis inornata_) of New Guinea, who, making a bower for the pleasure of his mate, will decorate the front of it with flowers carefully stuck into the sod.[1]