Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV: THE JOLLY EMPLOYMENT OF DR. ANDREW HOLL MUCH has been said in praise of gardens, and much in dispraise of the English climate. It might be thought that too little sun, too much wind and rain, and above all a great uncertainty in these visitations (so that it blows hot and cold in the division of a day and the most weather-wise are at fault about the morrow), would make gardening in these isles a hazardous act, promising, at best, a mediocre achievement. Flowers— and a garden without flowers is a cold affair—do naturally turn to the sun—the little sun that here is—and frost in late spring kills the tender buds, and high winds in summer blow away the petals of such flowers as have escaped this infant mortality and grown to a man's estate; sudden changes at all times imperil the short life of a flower; and if the growth of a rose from its cradling in the green calyx to its final efflorescence of fragrant and creamy petals could be insured (and for all that I know it can be), the premium, I take it, would be an high one. Nevertheless, in spite of all these dangers and discouragements, the gardens of England are the most beautiful in the world. Patriotic natives and your informed traveller talk much of the excellence of the art in other lands. Versailles and the Boboli and Shiraz, all have their panegyrists, but though there be great delight in your French, Italian, Persian, Dutch, Japanese (and for all I know to the contrary Russian, Chinese, Swedish or Siamese) gardens, the fact remains that the best examples of all of these are to be seen in England. Moreover, in the space of a few acres, you may walk in the gardens of two or three countries: from England, througha mere gate in the wall, you may walk soberly upon the square grey flagstones of your Dutch garden; or ...