Doubts and Difficulties
These extracts from Amateur Gardening come from issues ranging from 1899 to 1978
136 years of practical advice
1884 The World’s Oldest Gardening Magazine 2020
From 6 May 1899
The hardy hysteria
Q Will you kindly inform me whether hysteria grows quickly, and if it is hardy and a perennial?
M.R., London
A We are not sufficiently well versed in medical science to be able to give authoritative advice on such a subject as ‘hysteria’. So far as our limited knowledge goes, this complaint develops, if not grows quickly, is quite hardy, and in some instances perennial in its duration. But wait! It has just flashed into the editorial minds that you probably meant ‘wisteria’ when you wrote ‘hysteria’, and so, in order to escape the pains and penalties of the medical laws for illegally posing as a doctor, we will at once say that the wisteria grows slowly, is hardy and a perennial; in fact, it is a shrub.
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