I admit that I hesitate at the thought of pressing into the elect company of those who have discoursed upon gardens. From Lord Bacon down to the Poet Laureate, from the Poet Laureate up to that self-sufficing and yet voluble "Elizabeth," of whose German Garden all the craft have read, there seems no inch of garden sod that has been left unturned. I ask myself: Have I any original suggestions on, for example, The disbudding of \'Mums? (a term of horrid familiarity that I have seen applied to Chrysanthemums). Any high thoughts on Manures? Any special convictions in the matter of mulches?

My conscience, far from admitting ability to treat of these solemn things, reminds me that but little more than a year ago I should scarcely have been entrusted with the weeding of a gravel path, and hints at that Affair of the Coltsfoot. It is, in fact, the Coltsfoot Affair that decides me. I cannot be a guide or a sign-post, but I can be a scarecrow. I would say a moral scarecrow, though it may be conceded that the costume of the gardening amateur often lends itself to the more practical r?le.

I was not at all aware of being in the movement when I found myself snatching at my weekly copy of Gardening Illustrated in preference to the daily paper, and brooding heavily upon delphiniums when I might have been profiting by the sermon. It was only by degrees, as I went about the world, that I noted how quick and strong would beat the answering conversational pulse at the mention of a garden, at the sighing reference to the arrangement of a herbaceous border. It seemed that every second person I met was as much of a gardener as I was, in the matter of enthusiasm, and, as they might easily be, something more in the matter of practice. This discovery revolutionised society for me. It has doubtless done so for many another. The most penal afternoon visit may have its alleviations in a valuable hint on "the desire of the rose"—not for the star—but for the cleanings of the scullery drain; the most inveterate dowager may be found to be a man and a brother, profoundly versed in daffodils, full of lore about "Alpines." How astonishing it is to find oneself cheerfully, even ardently, assenting to what would once have been regarded as the hideous proposal to "Walk round the garden!" Such a walk has ceased to be a penance; it has become something, not quite a scouting expedition, not quite a (herbaceous) border-foray, not quite a "beggar\'s lay"; but it has something in it of the charms of all three. Which element preponderates depends on the character. There are moss-troopers born, who will twitch off a cutting, and filch a seed head, uncontrollably. There are heaven-endowed mendicants who will yearn and flatter the filling of a flower bed into a knotted pocket handkerchief. It is a useful principle to accept everything, regardless of the accident of the seasons. There are many other accidents of far higher importance to be considered—lapse of memory on the part of the giver, for instance, or repentance. In the amenities of gardeners, as in love, the advice to "Take me when I\'m in the humour," is sound, and a cutting in the hand is well worth six in or on the bush, when the bush is another\'s.

I believe it is the gambling element that gives to gardening so potent a charm—that, and the seedmen\'s catalogues. One of my first adventures was in response to a singularly seductive advertisement—"Humulus Lupulus," it said, "The finest creeper in the world. Grows forty feet in a single night. Massive clusters of yellowish blossoms. Beautiful; Healthy." I have the constitutional misfortune to believe, unquestioning, the printed word. Even now I find it hard to discount the flights of fancy of that poetic idealist, the advertising nurseryman. I despatched eighteenpence by the next post; received by return an undemonstrative bundle of little roots, planted them prayerfully in a choice place, and then, as it happened, left home for a time. On my return to my garden I found the usual crop of catastrophes and compensations, but disregarding all alike I sped to the site of the Humulus Lupulus. There had been near the same spot a highly esteemed rose, "Climbing Captain Christie." The first thing that greeted me was the wan, indignant face of a Captain Christie, who, having climbed for all he was worth, was none the less overtaken, and was now gazing at me in strangled pallor from the depths of a thicket of common hops. The Poetic Idealist had triumphed.

I have never been able precisely to ascertain to what extent Bat Whoolley found me out in the Affair—already alluded to—of the Coltsfoot. Bat is my gardener, and I value his opinion highly, almost as highly as he does himself, though possibly with more limitations. Winter Heliotrope was what my neighbour called Coltsfoot. I felt there was something not quite sound in the lavish way she pressed it upon me. She said there was nothing like it for covering bare places, and that I might dig it up for myself and take all I wanted. That specious permission might have warned me; so also might the singular fact that my neighbour\'s shrubbery had for undergrowth naught save the curving leaves of the winter heliotrope. None the less, I planted out two or three colonies of it on the outskirts of the rock garden.

One morning, at the turn by the pine tree (one of my colonies had been unostentatiously planted in a bare place behind the pine tree), I met Bat. His face was redder than usual, and there was something very searching in his eye. Mine did not meet it.

"Look at that!" he said.

He held up a handful of long white roots, and brandished it, much as Jupiter is represented brandishing a handful of lightning. "Look at that dam-root"—he pronounced the words as one pronounces beet-root—"that some"—here a powerful variant on the usual definition of fool—"is after planting in your honour\'s consarns! See here! If ye left no more o\' that in the ground than as much as ye couldn\'t see itself, it\'d have the place ate up in one fortnight! I gave the morning to it, an\' if I give the day itself it\'s hardly I\'ll have it all dug—Divil\'s cure to the—" (Here more variants in connection with the imposter.)

Something wavering in Bat\'s eye, even while the denunciation proceeded, made me conscious of the smirch of suspicion. I remained silent as the grave. Secretly I visited the other colonies, and found that one of them was already swinging an enveloping wing round the rearguard of the Iris Kaempferi, and that another had flung outposts into the heart of the helianthemums. At a bound I ranged myself with the opposition.

"Bat," I said, "the Dam-roots are in the garden!"

That night a fair-sized bundle of winter heliotrope was restored to my generous neighbour. Bat threw it over the wall.

I am slowly acquiring some insight into my gardener\'s likes and dislikes. He despises anything that he suspects of being a wild flower.

"\'Sha! that\'s no good! That\'s one of the Heth family! The hills is rotten with it."

But on the other hand, he will lavish such a wealth of attention upon potatoes as would, if bestowed on the despised daughter of Heth, cause it to blossom like the rose. There are, in his opinion, but three flowers really worthy of cultivation. Red geraniums, blue lobelias, and yellow calceolarias. With these, had he his will, should all my garden be glorious. I never buy them; I never see them in their earlier stages, but suddenly, in the herbaceous border, the trio will appear, uttering a note of colour only comparable to the shriek of a macaw.

"Why then, there isn\'t a gentleman\'s garden in Ireland but thim have the sway in it!" Bat says, when he finds me brood............