I have made this long extract because it seems to me to throw an exceedingly interesting side-light on the non-cultivation, and above all on the bad cooking, of vegetables, which extended to a great degree into my childhood. Even to-day, in spite of the increased quantity of vegetables and their comparative cheapness, it is rare to see them in any variety in English family life; and I am told that at ordinary clubs Potatoes and Brussels Sprouts represent in winter the vegetable kingdom. What is still more remarkable is that the absence of vegetables has now extended to all the principal foreign hotels, with the probable notion of suiting the English taste.

In the early Protestant days meat was no doubt eaten with a religious zeal, and the cultivation and cooking of vegetables was utterly neglected. The old gardens of the monasteries ran to ruin even quicker than the fish-ponds. It became a point of national honour to disregard the methods of cooking vegetables which had been brought by the monks, who were men of taste, from France and Italy. Proper cooking alone makes ordinary vegetables palatable, and improves even the very best. The extraordinary development of the vegetable, fruit, and flower trade is one of the most marked changes of my lifetime. When I was young, it was impossible in the West End of London to buy any flowers at all in the streets or shops. If we did not winter in the South of France, but remained in London, we had to go to some nursery gardens that lay between Rutland Gate and Kensington in order to buy a few Violets.

Froude says, about another strange effect of the Reformation, 'It probably, more than any other cause, stopped the development of painting in England. Holbein had no pupils. Zuccaro left the country in disgust. All portraits that remain were painted by foreigners.' The worst kings from the political point of view have been the best from that of painting. Charles I. was no exception to the rule, and his magnificent gallery was sold by Parliament in 1645 for 38,000., apparently without protest.

Of all the months in the year, this is perhaps the one in which the keenest amateur can best afford to leave home; and if I do not go away, it is the one I can best spare to my gardener for his holiday. In August hope, as far as the year is concerned, is over. There is nothing that imperatively requires doing; nearly all there is to do can be as well done in July or September. After deciding to leave home I gave instructions that the young French Beans and Scarlet Runners should be picked over, almost daily, so that none should grow coarse and old; and that the cook should lay them separately, as they were brought in, in large earthenware pans-a handful of Beans and then a handful of salt, and so on till the pan was full. This is an excellent method; and I have eaten them, preserved in this way, all through the winter. I believe this is done everywhere abroad, but never in England, where the waste, both in the kitchen and the garden, is, as we all acknowledge, a national vice. Of course the Beans in the salt must not be allowed to get touched by frost in the autumn. When wanted, they are taken out, well soaked (to prevent their being too salt), boiled in the ordinary way-cut up or whole, as we like them best-then drained, and warmed up in fresh butter, a squeeze of lemon and a little chopped Parsley on the top. They can also be cooked with a white cream sauce. All this is well described for fresh Beans in 'Dainty Dishes.'I think these salted Beans have more flavour than the tinned ones, or than those that come from Madeira in the winter. Besides, the principle of utilising everything in a garden should never be lost sight of.

This year fate took us to the North, to Northumberland, the home of my maternal family, from which my mother in her youth, with the whole large family, travelled twice a year on the old North Road to London and back in carriages and coaches. One of my mother's aunts used to tell a story of how in her youth she had had her hair dressed in London to appear at a Newcastle ball, and she added with pride, 'When I entered the ball-room I had my reward.'

I was surprised to find that the great changes that have come over our Southern gardens by the re-introducing the old-fashioned flowers and the old methods of cultivating them are much less noticeable in the North. Apparently changes work slower in the North than around London. I wonder why this is ? People there have the same books, the same newspapers, and the same climatic advantage as in Scotland, which makes the herbaceous plants grow to great perfection, and flower much longer than in the South. One would have thought the fashion which has so influenced us would have influenced them. I saw in many places long borders planted with rows of red, violet, white, yellow, and purple -vistas of what used to be called ribbon-borders, very un-picturesque at the best, and nearly always unsatisfactory. Why they ever came in, and why they have lasted so long, it is difficult to understand. The gardens of rich and poor, big house and villa, were planted on the same system-perennials in lines, annuals in lines, Mignonette in lines; and where long lines were not possible, the planting was in rows round the shrubberies, which is, I think, the ugliest thing I know. If shrubberies are planted with flowers at all, I like large holes cut back, which makes a good protection, and plants introduced in bold groups. I did not see one garden while I was away-whose owners ought to have known better-where things were what I call well planted, in good bold masses of colour; whereas near Dublin more than two years ago I found the best herbaceous border I have ever seen. The way of planting in this Dublin border, with all the reds in one place, and the blues, the yellows, and the whites kept apart as much as possible, was as superior to the dotted arrangement as the dotted system is to the line, in my opinion. I even saw in some places this year what I as a child had remembered as old mixed borders, turned into that terrible gardening absurdity, carpet-bedding-the pride, I suppose, of the gardener and the admiration of his friends. This is never to be seen now in Surrey, I think, except in certain beds at Hampton Court; and why it is continued there I find it hard to understand, unless it is that it really does give pleasure to Londoners, and certainly in its way it is carried out to great perfection.