The quotations throughout the book are quite unusually 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 sympathetic 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 Woodlands,'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 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 individuality 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 working 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 excellent, cheap, instructive little book. Mr. Wood, of Kirkstall, Yorkshire, has a very fine collection of herbaceous 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. E. 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, '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 so 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. Ellwanger gives us a most luxurious and opulent recipe 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 gathering, 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, violet, tuberose, and attar of roses, together with a hint of ambergris, or musk, in mixture with the flower ottos to fix the odour. Spices, such as cloves, should be sparingly-used. A rose Pot-pourri thus combined, without parsimony in supplying the flower ottos, will be found in the fullest sense a joy for ever.'

1890. 'History of Botany,'by Julius von Sachs, translated by Henry E. F. Garnsey. This book will commend itself to those gardeners, and to amateurs generally, who love knowledge not hard to acquire. The history of the long evolution of botany through so many clever, patient, and painstaking hands, is even more interesting than a smattering of botany itself, now that we take its simple laws unquestioningly as we take the great fact that the earth revolves on its own axes, though we each day repeat the old expressions that the sun rises and the sun sets.

1891. 'The Miniature Fruit Garden,'by Thomas Rivers and T. Francis Rivers. The twentieth edition. This fact proclaims more eloquently than any words of mine can do the excellence and usefulness of this little book. Of all the many changes to be noticed in my life-time, I know none more remarkable than the immense increase that has taken place within my memory in fruit cultivation and fruit consumption.