It was a Gardener's and Botanist's Dictionary, by Philip Miller; and the plates were plates of flowers, very truly drawn, like the pine tree in Uncle Charley's Jap.picture.There were some sections too, but they were sections of greenhouses, not of any kinds of mills or machinery.
The odd thing was that it turned out a kind of help to Arthur after all.

For we got so much interested in it that it roused us up about our gardens.

We are all very fond of flowers, I most of all.

And at last Arthur said he thought that miniature mills were really rather humbugging things, and it would be much easier and more useful to build a cold frame to keep choice auriculas and _half-hardies_ in.
When we took up our gardens so hotly, Harry and Adela took up theirs, and we did a great deal, for the weather was fine.
We were surprised to find that the Old Squire's Scotch Gardener knew Miller's Gardener's Dictionary quite well.

He said, "It's a gran' wurrk!" (Arthur can say it just like him.) One day he wished he could see it, and smell the russia binding; he said he liked to feel a nice smell.