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A

YEAR IN A LANCASHIRE GARDEN.

A YEAR

IN A

LANCASHIRE GARDEN.

BY

HENRY A. BRIGHT.

SECOND EDITION.

London:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1879.

The Right of Translation is Reserved.

LONDON:
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR,
BREAD STREET HILL.

PREFACE.

This volume is but a collection of Notes, which, at the request of theeditor, I wrote, month by month, in 1874, for the columns of theGardeners' Chronicle.

They pretend to little technical knowledge, and are, I fear, of butlittle horticultural value. They contain only some slight record of ayear's work in a garden, and of those associations which a garden is socertain to call up.

As, however, I found that this monthly record gave pleasure to readers,to whom both the garden and its owner were quite unknown, I printed offsome fifty copies to give to those, whom I have the happiness to numberamong my friends, and for whom a garden has the same interest that ithas for me.

Four years have passed since then, and I am still asked for copies whichI cannot give.

I have at last,[vi]rather reluctantly, for there seems to me somethingprivate and personal about the whole affair, resolved to reprint thesenotes, and see if this little book can win for itself new friends on itsown account.

One difficulty, I feel, is that I am describing what happened five yearsago. But this I cannot help. To touch or alter would be to spoil thetruthfulness of all. The notes must stand absolutely as they werewritten. But after all, I believe, the difficulty is only an apparentone. The seasons, indeed, may vary—a spring may be later, a summer maybe warmer, an autumn may be more fruitful,—but the seasons themselvesremain. The same flowers come up each year, the same associations linkthemselves on to the returning flowers, and the verses of the greatpoets are unchanged. The details of a garden will alter, but its generaleffect and aspect are the same.

Nevertheless, something has been learnt, and something remembered, sincethese notes were written, and this, also communicated from time to...