In the 'Gardener' of November last we applied remarks to the same effect: "Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well; and it may be taken for granted that no one with any sense of good culture and order in a garden pretends to maintain that the style of hardy mixed flower-borders that were in vogue before bedding-out began would now be tolerated. No doubt, to compare the system to which we have just referred with the bedding-out system, the latter is the more expensive. But to affirm that the bedding-out system is more expensive or laborious than the same area occupied and kept gay from spring till autumn with hardy herbaceous plants in a state of good cultivation is a different matter." Will our readers tell us where the one statement contradicts the other ? Such criticism consists only of a species of unfair quotation that no honourable mind would resort to. It would not have fitted in with the spirit and tactics of the 'Garden' to have gone on and quoted our remarks at pages 13, 14, and 15 of our book.

We now turn to this writer's second quotation and his comments thereon, coupling them with his comments on the use we made of our opportunities at Archerfield in the matter of hardy herbaceous plants. The same remark, as will be seen, applies to both. He is in utter ignorance of the mainspring of our flower-gardening at Archerfield; but that seems best to suit his purpose. When we were engaged to take charge of the gardens at Archer-field, their noble proprietrix gave us only one definite command regarding their management. It was, that the flower-gardening (to which nearly every word we have quoted above in reference to the old hardy system applied) was to be done away with, for the sole reason that the family, having other two or three country seats, were never likely to reside at Archerfield except from early in August till about the middle of November, and that in former years the hardy plants were all out of bloom, withered, and littery-like when the family arrived there. We had the most definite order to inaugurate the bedding system; and at what expense we shall presently see. We had one season's experience of the old system there, and in every point it tallied with Lady Mary Nisbet Hamilton's remarks about it.

Her ladyship arrived early in August of that year to find all the herbaceous plants in the long borders in front of the chief range of glass and at the flower-garden done blooming, and withered-like, and her ladyship commanded the change with more decision than ever. Now these gardens had for a quarter of a century been in charge of two men (the late Mr John Young, and Mr James M'Intosh, my predecessor at Drumlanrig) very painstaking cultivators, and there was an excellent assortment of these plants at Archerfield; still we could have carried in our hand the whole bloom they produced in August and September. As is well known, the soil at Archerfield is light and dry, the climate considered to be the driest in Great Britain, and no supply of water but what had to be pumped by manual labour and collected from the roofs of the houses - conditions most unfavourable to a late bloom of herbaceous plants - but as everybody who visits the place knows, it is most singularly favourable to the long-continued and brilliant bloom of the half-hardy plants used there.

Had our depreciatory critic been in our position, with all his ardent love of hardy plants, what would he have done ? Disobeyed his employer, or have made the most of available resources and met her wishes? Our opinion is, that one of the best tests, and the first duty of a successful gardener, is to produce what his employer wants, and let his own hobbies sink.

We of course carried out our employer's wish, removing the shrubs and hardy herbaceous plants with which the beds and borders were mostly filled; and in the hope of getting some of the best late-blooming sorts to bloom later, we planted some of them in a damper border partially shaded; but finding that they were over before September, we did not continue them. This, we should suppose, is explanation and reason enough for our practice at Archerfield, notwithstanding the esteem in which we held and still hold many herbaceous plants, and in spite of what our critic tries to make out.

We entertained the Editor of the 'Garden' at Archerfield some time after the change of gardening. But he apparently forgets all he saw or heard of there. He has forgotten how he expatiated to us on the numbers of tall-growing things used to relieve the general features. He forgets all about the majestic rows of Tritomas, the Palms, comparatively hardy Dracaenas, Humeas, Yuccas (variegated and green), Gladiolus, etc. Since an occurrence of last November, he makes it convenient to forget all these matters.

The third quotation made from our writings shows the desperate straits to which our contemporary is reduced in his attempt at fastening a case on us. This is what we did write : -

"Indeed it has been hinted that some of the sections of plants are scarcely susceptible of much further improvement; and as to arrangement, it might almost be said that the plants at our service have been used in every conceivable arrangement and relationship to each other, and that there cannot be much to achieve within the limits of good taste in this direction." See how this quotation is garbled ! Now this is not given as our positive opinion, and we continue to write : "If this be near the truth, and the rate of progress is to be maintained, and the interest of flower-gardening freshened, we must necessarily look to a new order of plants, and to the reintroduction of many that have been much neglected, and, in fact, never cultivated as they ought," and so on - page 12 of 'Handy Book;' and at page 13 the reader will find us continuing the subject: "I consider it very desirable to work into a still greater variety of a hardier class of plants," etc.; and then - "Hardy plants such as I have referred to, or rather the multiplication and use of them, are one of the greatest desiderata of the modern flower-garden." We wrote this years before the 'Garden ' was in existence.