It almost seemed as though the old garden wanted to show that all this cutting, carving, and pummelling were quite unnecessary, for it suddenly burst out all over with Violets, Primroses, and double Lent Lilies. That is the way in which an old garden deludes you in April. The Violets come in myriads in the cool spots. The Primroses grow almost like weeds. The Daffodils throw up their flower stems lavishly. You see the pretty wildings on every bank, in every corner, under every hedge. You gather handfuls, basketfuls, of them. The surroundings are pleasant, too. The air has lost its winter harshness, the Hawthorn buds are swelling, the birds are growing in numbers and in volume of song. So, perhaps, you drink in the charm of reviving Nature, and think how much more delightful, after all, are the wild than the cultivated flowers. You may even be so far lulled into security as to countermand orders for new beds and borders, more sowings and plantings.

But wait a little while. After three or four weeks of golden brilliance the Lent Lilies will fade. The sweet Violets will cease blooming, and be hidden in a rising forest of Cow Parsley. The Primroses, it is true, will blossom on, but the fast-spreading Crowfoot and Bishop's Weed will sidle up to them, flow over them, engulf them. By mid-May the scene has changed. There are scarcely any flowers to be seen, for the coarse weeds will be rampant everywhere. Thence onward you are fighting a losing battle every day.

It may sound paradoxical, but a wild garden near a house wants almost more cultivating than dressed grounds do. Be not ensnared by the old garden's April smiles.

He is a gay deceiver. Push on with the borders, push on with your plantings and your raisings, your hardenings and your prickings out. It will be well for you in the end.

Annuals. - It is always dinned into your ears that hardy annuals must be sown thinly, but nobody ever does it, least of all the experts who advise it. The fact is, it is not so easy to sow annuals thinly, when they have seeds like Poppies or Coreopsis. Of course, it is simple enough with Lupins, which have seeds nearly as big as Beans. [The best way is to form a ring, large or small according to the plant, and sprinkle the seed round it as lightly as may be, then thin the plants well afterwards. If you sow in a patch you are sure to over-sow.]

Snapdragons. - We sowed a box of these, hoping for autumn bloom [and got it in abundance. Why don't people treat these glorious flowers as annuals? They grow and flower until December, unless the autumn is very hard].

Gladioli. - We bought named Gandavensis varieties of these, and planted them in a bed to themselves, which we lightened (being stiff) with a good bit of sand, and enriched with superphosphate. [The Gladiolus, well grown, is just about the king of August and September flowers, although the Dahlia has a numerically stronger following. The Gladiolus is thought by many to be difficult to grow; it is not, if there is plenty of grit and moisture in the soil.]

Pruning Roses. - Eunice flamed with indignation when she discovered the author and Wilkins at work, and accused them of having been debauched by the Ancient.

She refused to read the array of authorities put before her, and spoke of writing to the Anti-vivisection Society. [Odd that womenfolk will glory in the slicing up of Rose shoots to make buds, and yet object so strongly to pruning; it is sheer feminine inconsistency, and nothing else.] We cut weak sorts hard - to three and four eyes, but only lightly pruned extra vigorous varieties like Augustine Guinoisseau and Grüss an Teplitz. [The National Rose Society publishes a booklet on Rose pruning, which invites you to treat the varieties as individuals. Excellent, if you have time; if you haven't, don't worry, but follow our rule, and you will be right with nine varieties out of ten, including Teas and Hybrid Teas.] The Kitchen Garden. - It is encouraging to see early things coming through, and on the strength of it we sowed Dwarf French Beans and Beetroot at the middle of the month. We also sowed Intermediate Carrots, Cauliflowers for autumn, Brussels Sprouts, Kales, Savoy, and Broccoli for winter, and a succession of Peas. [Vermin won't touch Pea seeds if they (the seeds) are rolled in paraffin oil just before being sown. Observe the word "rolled"; just turn them over in the liquid and then take them out - leaving them to soak is unnecessary and dangerous.]

Celery previously sown in boxes was now moving strongly, and the plants were pricked off, 4 inches apart, in fresh boxes. Leeks were sown, and so was Parsley. [The way to get green and beautifully curled Parsley is to sow some well-known seedsman's selected strain in soil strewn with a thin powdering of superphosphate. The Parsley comes as curly as a pug's tail, and as green as grass.]

Potatoes. - Our juvenile of eighty-two was pegging away with infinite satisfaction to himself, and as fast as he cleaned the ground it was planted. [The endurance of this amazing Ancient excited the envy of the author, who, on the strength of certain athletic successes, had imagined his muscles to be of steel. But he could not ply spade day after day without stiffness, whereas the aged one never wearied. The champion oarsmen, record runners, and crack batsmen create a stir, but for sheer endurance give the author a Kentish labourer who has wielded a "spud" in fruit and hop gardens for many years. He is a piece of tireless machinery.] The Potatoes went in by the middle of April, and were well "hilled" with loose earth. Wilkins had a theory for cutting off a slice from the heel of each tuber, which helped it to decay after it had started the fresh crop, and was allowed to indulge after Eunice's fear that all the new Potatoes would come up with slices off their heels had been removed.

Seakale. - Pieces of Seakale root, as long as one's hand and as thick as a little finger, were planted in rows 18 inches apart. [The following February we heaped ashes over these, and had some very nice, clean Seakale. This way of forcing costs nothing, because you simply save the ashes from the house fires, and after the forcing is over they are spread on the adjacent walks.]

Tomatoes. - Sturdy little plants, with two cut leaves each, were put 6 inches apart in boxes, and stood in a frame, to harden and strengthen against planting out time. No tender, "miffy" plants for Wilkins. ["Miffy" is the gardener's term for plants which do not grow strongly and freely. Can it have come from the German "müffig " - sullen, sulky? If not, from what?]

Tree Stumps - Old trees may be made beautiful objects in gardens.

Fig. Tree Stumps - Old trees may be made beautiful objects in gardens.

Old Fruit Trees. - It is a pity that old trees bear so much fruit, because it makes people reluctant to part with them. Some of these hoary old fellows have a way of looking very picturesque in spring, and making a great show of producing an immense quantity of fruit in autumn, which is no earthly use to anybody, owing to its being nearly all core and very little flesh (and bad at that). [We sent a basket of fruit from one of our trees to a maternal aunt from whom Eunice had "expectations," and relations were very strained for a long time afterwards. We understood why, when we had tasted the fruit ourselves.] We removed the upper forks from some of the worst trees, and planted Clematis montana against the boles. Others we grafted by slitting the bark down the side of the cut-back branches, raising it, and slipping in shoots about 4 inches long, neatly cut to fit. To exclude air, Wilkins compounded a brew of resin, beeswax, and tallow, which set hard as fast as he brushed it on.

Melons. - A new frame had now arrived, so a fresh hotbed was made up for it. The intention had been to grow Cucumbers in it, but the reflection that we were rather short of fruit, and that Cucumbers would grow very well in the garden, caused a change to be made. A strong plant, with its top nipped out, was planted in the middle of the frame, and soon pushed shoots, one of which was taken towards each corner of the frame, and its tip pinched off when it got to the end of its journey - a simple plan, and a good, for we got a very nice lot of fruit.

Birds and Fruit Buds. - We had not been gardening long before we revised our ideas about birds. To the end Eunice begged the author not to kill them, and he promised, because his feelings were so overwrought that one death would have afforded him no sort of satisfaction; he would have wanted to restore the feathered corpses to life and kill them all over again. Birds are charming when sitting on their nests in photographs in Kearton's books, but nowhere else. In gardens they do not sit in sweet simplicity on their nests and be snapped by cameras; they rampage round amongst the fruit. They begin by tearing off the buds in spring, and what escape them then and develop fruit they gulp down eagerly in the summer. Some of them eat insects, others don't - or only a casual few by way of whetting their appetites for more fruit, and by way of deceiving the credulous folk (not being fruit growers) who believe in them. Of course, a house sparrow is carnivorous sometimes, so is a blackbird, so is a finch. Birds are quite capable of adapting themselves to circumstances. And they are cunning - oh, so cunning! (The author begs that irate bird lovers will not write infuriated letters to him on reading these lines He doesn't kill birds - he doesn't, really. Indeed, he loves them - especially in Kearton's photographs.) The only thing is to net, and that needs to be done with skill. Hoary old blackbirds exist that have given their lives to the study of getting under fruit nets.