It has been my endeavour to prepare the reader gently for certain little trials in gardening. I have let fall words of warning about insects and fungi - about slugs and aphides, mildew and caterpillars. The fact that nature puts certain obstacles in the path of the amateur must be made known, but not with violence. The spring days are fair, the flowers are sweet, the long nights are full of soft lights, why speak of troubles in so unguarded a way as to give an exaggerated idea of their terrors?

When in the fragrant, blowy May morns the amateur sees the trail of the slug among his seedlings, when zigzags of mounds all over his lawn show that moles have been at work, is he going to taste deeply of the iron of sorrow? No, he is going to find compensation in the brilliant cups of his Tulips, in the rosy sheets of his fruit blossom, in the sight of sturdy, purple Asparagus shoots and the tender tint of young Peas.

May is a month of development. The green of the lawn is as soft as that of the Larches. The little Stocks, and Phloxes, and Asters, and Lettuces are moving rapidly. There is joyful promise of a happy gardening year. Early morning in the garden is a time of delicious, invigorating air, of sweet smells, of charming glimpses of ruddy tints in beds of Paeonies and Tea Roses. We rise with the lark, and go forth with lightness of heart, with teeming hopefulness. We have laboured, and we begin to see some result from our work. There have been gloomy days, and irksome tasks; but now there is sunshine, and young leaves, and blossom.

It is my heartfelt wish that the amateur should drink deeply of May's garden joys. They are abundant, they are rich. They hearten him not only for garden enjoyments, but for the stern labours of life. I do not, however, want him to join the Lotus-eaters. I do not wish to see complacency steal too deeply into his being, and tell him that he may now rest content, for all has been done that need be done. The attitude which I want him to assume is that of the Marathon runner who, having breasted the hills, forced his way through the brake, and found himself at last on the level track which leads to the goal, braces himself, lengthens his stride, and resolutely makes good speed for home. Perhaps an unsuspected obstacle obtrudes itself; the runner is surprised, but not dismayed. After all, the hills and the brake are behind him - what is an odd ditch or fence?

The full garden is the slug's opportunity. He comes forth ravenous. And the green aphis comes, and the American blight, and the Bean dolphin, and the mole, and the evening rabbit, and - yes, he always - the sparrow. Amongst them they will bring all our labours to naught if we let them. Let us relax our vigilance but for a week, let us indulge our complacency for however short a time, and an evil hand lays hold upon the garden. We will not cease our efforts. The ball is at our feet, and we will play it with all the vigour and the skill that are in us. Blithely, cheerily, we will make head against our garden foes. Our plants must live, that is the great fact, and so their enemies must be worried and harried unceasingly.