Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

by the constant desire to extend them into pastures new. Mr. Eobinson'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. It is 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 their 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. 1 God's Acre Beautiful, or The Cemeteries of the Future ' is a strong plea for cremation. My edition is 234 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN the third, published in 1883. Everyone interested in the subject ought to read it. The picture, at the end of the book, of a section of a pauper corner in a London cemetery is, I think, enough to convert anybody ; but it does not seem to me that the practice of cremation is gaining much ground. The recent sweeping-away of West End London cemeteries contrasts badly, even from the point of view of sentiment, with the tombs at Pompeii used for urns ; the chapter referring to these is headed ' Permanent, Unpolluted, Inviolate.' That is certainly not the modern cemetery ! In 1892 Mr. Eobinson published two lectures of considerable severity, called ' Garden Design ' and ' Architects' Gardens.' These lectures were mainly directed against two books ; one, that seemed to contradict all Mr. Eobinson's work, was ' The Formal Garden in England,' by Keginald Blomfield and T. Inigo Thomas. The fact is, that near large and stately houses there must be some kind of formal laying-out of the ground, even if ever so informally planted (Mr. Eobinson him- self would be the first to recognise this), unless everything is sacrificed to stateliness, and turf alone is admitted. The whole discussion is full of interest to those who possess large places. The next book on which Mr. Eobinson pours the vials of his wrath (I love righteous indignation on one's pet subject) is ' Garden Craft, Old and New,' by John D. Sedding. Of all Mr.