Friday, 18 July 2008

A sign of madness

It seems to me a sign of obsession with a subject, when you have items relating to it, which are of no possible use to you.

I have a number of garden/gardening/horticulture books, which I am sure I will not derive the slightest practical use from.

That is not to say that they are without any use - they give pleasure.

This is, I think, the book I own which is the least useful, but I love it.

It is by E St Clair Morford and is the 1946 reprint of the 1926 original.

It bears the following heartrending inclusion in the revised foreword:

“Since 1926, when this book first appeared, much has happened. The writer returned in1945 to a garden completely destroyed; borders turned into sweet potato beds, lawns a waving sea of lalang and “forestry”. Fern and plant houses pulled down; shrubs and trees cut down by vandals, who cut the trees to get the fruit!…standard hibiscus and orchids - the collection of 30 years - thrown on the rubbish heap!…”C’est la guerre”!...

2 comments:

Alex Johnson said...

What a lovely cover.

emmat said...

Oh, I miss Alex! When is he coming back! It's about ten more weeks isn't it? What a lazybones, I hate him actually