GOVERNMENT HOUSE GARDENS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 4944, 18 February 1895, Page 3

GOVERNMENT HOUSE GARDENS.

[to tiik editor.]

Sir, —The letters of your Welling, ton correspondent, are usually of'a very interesting nature,and if 1 have not time to rend them when 1 got the paper 1 usually put it by to read at my leisure. There is one portion of last Thursday's letter which I feel it my duty to protest against, viz that paragraph referring to the (lo- , vernmcnt House Grounds, Your ' correspondent states that the show of (lowers in these gardens is so poor that they would not do much credit to a cottage garden. Now, Sir, I 'Strolled round Government House Grounds on Friday last, and to fell the truth, 1 was really surprised to sec so good a show of ilowers,grown under such conditions, ; The soil is a poor cold clay, very 1 prone to run together, get hard and crack, much more suitable for making bricks than growing flowers, besides which many of the borders are overhung with big trees,ami iu some cases the trees aro growing in the , borders, so that under ordinary conditions weeds would not evon grow, and yet n good variety of flowers , were in full bloom, aud looking \ fairly healthy—a fact which im- ■ mediately attracted my attention ; and surprise. As I was talking to i the head gardener I saw a man with ; two watering cans going about the borders watering each plant, looking into one of the cans I saw that the i water was not clear, then the secret was out. Every plant has to be supplied with manure water, and this is what takes up a lot of time! I think that your correspondent should have at least gone a littlo deeper 1 into the subject before ho wrote that portion of his paragraph, as itwas hardly the right thing to cast such a, slur ou the head gardener when your correspondent is nut really acquainted with the whole facts and conditions of the case. 1 am, etc., FaiRI'LAV,