About the first part of this statement I have no observation to make. It is probably propaganda, subsidised by the Meteorological Office in order to persuade us that we still have a summer; it has nothing to do with my present theme. But with regard to the ripening ruddy-faced fruits I should like to point out that in my garden there are none of these things, because the previous tenants took them all away when they left. Not a ruddy-faced fruit remains. As for the rich and gloriously-coloured flora, I lifted the edges of all the packing-cases in turn and looked for it, but it was not there either. It should have consisted, I gather, of "gorgeously-coloured dahlias, gay sunflowers, Michaelmas daisies, gladioli and other autumn blossoms, adding brightness and gaiety to our flower-garden."
"Gaiety" seems to be rather a strong point with this author, for a little further on he says, "The garden should be gay throughout the month with the following plants," and then follows a list of about a hundred names which sound like complicated diseases of the internal organs. I cannot mention them all, but it seems that my garden should be gay throughout with Lysimachia clethroides, Kniphofia nobilis and Pyrethrum uliginosum. It is not. How anything can be gay with Pyrethrum uliginosum I cannot imagine. An attitude of reverent sympathy is what I should have expected the garden to have. But that is what the man says.
Then there is the greenhouse. "From now onwards," he writes, "the greenhouse will meet with a more welcome appreciation than it has during the summer months. The chief plants in flower will be Lantanas, Campanula pyramidalis, Zonal Pelargoniums," and about twenty more. "Oh, they will, will they?" I thought, and opened the greenhouse door and looked in. Against the wall there were two or three mouldering peach-trees, and all over the roof and floor a riot of green tomatoes, a fruit which even when it becomes ruddy-faced I do not particularly like. In a single large pot stood a dissipated cactus, resembling a hedgehog suffering from mange.
But what was even more bitter to me than all this ruin and desolation was the thought of the glorious deeds I might have been doing if the garden had been all right. Phrases from the book kept flashing to my eye.
"Thoroughly scrub the base and sides of the pots, and see that the drainage-holes are not sealed with soil." How it thrilled the blood!
"Damp the floors and staging every morning and afternoon, and see that the compost is kept uniformly moist." What a fascinating pursuit!
"Feed the plants once a week with liquid manure." It went like a clarion call to the heart.
And here I was condemned to ennui and indolence when I might have been sitting up all night dosing the Zonal Pelargoniums with hot beef-tea and taking the temperature of the Campanula pyramidalis. Even with the ruddy-faced fruits there would have been plenty to do.
"Wooden trays with open lath bottoms made to slide into a framework afford the best means of storing apples and pears. The ripening of pears may be accelerated by enclosing them in bran or dry clean sand in a closed tin box." It did not say how often one was to clean out the cage, nor whether you put groundsel between the bars.
I told the man next door of my sorrows.