Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

' 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 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, B 242 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 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, trans- lated 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 axis, 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.