THE ART OF GARDENING

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 47, 24 February 1934, Page 19

THE ART OF GARDENING

The winter season in-England,usually brings a number of garden books into the publisher's lists, perhaps because people have time to Tead in winter about what they can do, or would, like to do, in summer. "A Short History of Gardens," by H. N. Wethered, is not a book of advice to the gardener, but a study : of the art of gardening, from the imaginary pleasaunces that their creators envisaged as Paradise to the present era when "the languors of the lily-pond are exchanged for the energies of the bathing-pool (and) squash-racket courts are more popular than summer houses," The gardens of ancient Egypt, the gardens of Greece, monastery gardens, the gardens of Popes and Princes, Versailles, Bacon's too oftquoted essay, Capability Brown, Chinoiserie, the Italianate vogue—all are shown in their grace or their quaintness, and all are in tune with the progress of culture of another sort. This is not only a compact history of one of the arts, but a hugely entertaining book,; and effortlessly so. "Another Gardener's Bed Book," by Bichardson Wright, is a curious mixture of gardening wisdom, gastronomic asides, reflections on cats, dogs, canaries, oysters, pop-corn, and the rest. As a "bed book" it might easily in- , duce slumber if read in small doses.