X.

"The sweetest flower for scent that grows,"

has been very sweet with us. But we dare not leave it in our garden; we bring the pots, with their tall green wands tipped with delicious tufts of bloom, into the centre hall, and the warm perfume rises up the staircase, and floats along the open gallery above.

September 19.—I have just gathered from the wall between the vineries the finest blossom I ever happen to have seen of what I maintain is the finest flower in the world—the Magnolia grandiflora—so large and round is it, of such a rich cream colour, and with such a rich strong scent. The Tuberose even seems a plebeian flower by theside of the Magnolia. Once only have I seen this Magnolia growing upon a lawn as a standard, and I never saw any flowering tree so grand, as its dark green leaves lifted up the large white chalices to catch the freshest dews from heaven. But what must it be where this beautiful tree grows wild, as on the

"Hills with high Magnolia overgrown,"

where Gertrude of Wyoming was used to wander?

And, as I gather this Magnolia, the feeling comes across me that now the year is over as regards the garden. We may have another month of flowers, but they are the flowers that linger on, not the flowers that open out new pleasures for us; the Michaelmas Daisy alone remains,—for "the Michaelmas Daisy blows lonely and late,"—before we reach the Chrysanthemums and winter. We have now had all that summer and autumn had to give us, and it seems as though Nature had exhausted all her energies, and were ready for a long rest. The Fuchsias, that come up year by year, are still in great beauty. The Jasmine, with variegated leaves, that clings round an old brick pedestal in the middle of a Kalmia bed, still opens its white blossoms. The Escallonia, that grows up thehouse, will hang its red flowers in front of the library windows for a fortnight still to come. But the year is virtually at an end, and we talk only of the bulbs for the spring, or of the moving of shrubs in the early winter.

Yet I find two things, of which I have still to speak. The Asters have been good. I had planted them in among the standard Rose beds, and very gay they are. Many years have passed since I found the wild Aster of America growing on the hill-side at Concord behind Hawthorne's house, and was reminded of Emerson's lines—

"Chide me not, laborious band,For the idle flowers I brought;Every Aster in my handGoes home loaded with a thought."

Then, by the side of the vinery, is growing a little row of Indian Corn. The plants stand each from 9 to 11 feet high, and each bears its flowering plume above, and its tasselled ears below. There are two varieties, one yellow and one red. I brought them on in heat, and planted them out when they were about a foot in height. This year, as for three years past, they have ripened with me, and on one plant, strangely enough, a piece of theflower has itself fructified! I am not botanist enough to understand how this has happened.[10]

St. Luke's Summer—The Orchard—The Barberry—White Haricot Beans—Transplanting—The Rockery.

October 15.—This is St. Luke's summer, or the "Indian summer" as it is called in America. The air is soft and warm and still. The yellow leaves fall from the Beeches in countless numbers, but slowly and noiselessly, and as if reluctant to let go their hold. The rooks come back to us again across the fields, and clamour among the empty nests, which were their homes in spring. The "remontant" Roses are putting out their latest blooms, and the Antirrhinums, Mulleins, and some few other flowers, show themselves "remontant" also. There is an aromatic fragrance everywhere from the withering leaves and from the lingering flowers.

But there is sadness with it all. We cannot deceive ourselves, but we know that all is now over, and that at any moment the frost may come, and leave us nothing but decay and death.

There are some lines in Morris'sEarthly Paradise—the very best lines, I think, in the whole poem—which speak of some old men's last peaceful days, as

"—like those days of later autumn-tide,When he who in some town may chance to bideOpens the window for the balmy air,And, seeing the golden hazy sky so fair,And from some city garden hearing stillThe wheeling rooks the air with music fill—Sweet, hopeful music—thinketh, Is this spring?Surely the year can scarce be perishing.But then he leaves the clamour of the town,And sees the withered scanty leaves fall down;The half-ploughed field, the flowerless garden plot;The full dark stream, by summer long forgot;The tangled hedges where, relaxed and dead,The twining plants their withered berries shed,And feels therewith the treachery of the sun,And knows the pleasant time is well-nigh done."

Was picture ever more truly painted?—and any day it may be true for us.

Our Apple harvest has been over for nearly a fortnight; but how pleasant the orchard was while it lasted, and how pleasant the seat in the corner by the Limes, whence we see the distant spire on the green wooded slopes. The grey, gnarled old Apple-trees have, for the most part, done well. The Ribston Pippins are especially fine, and so is an apple, which we believe to be the King of thePippins. On the other hand, we have some poor and worthless sorts—probably local varieties,—which no pomologist, however able and obliging, would undertake to name. One of the prettiest of Apples—and one of the best, too—is the Delaware. It has an orange-red colour, and reminds one almost of an Orange as it hangs upon the tree. It has a crisp, delicious flavour, but requires to be eaten as soon as it is ripe, for otherwise it soon gets mealy. Indeed all eating apples, with but few exceptions, are best when freshly gathered, or, better still, when, on some clear soft day, they have just fallen on the grass, and lie there, warmed by the rays of the autumn sun.

Of my Pears I have not much to say: the new trees I have planted have hardly come into bearing, and the old ones are of inferior quality. In another year or two, however, I shall hope to be supplied through all the winter months up to the middle of the spring. Plums have done but little, and Damsons, which are supposed to succeed so well in Lancashire, are an absolute failure. I must not forget the Red Siberian Crab, which has been laden with fruit, and one tree of which should find its corner in every garden. Last of all, I have to speak of the Barberry. There is a great bushwhich stands by the grass walk in the walled garden. In the summer it was a mass of scented yellow blossoms, round which bees were always buzzing. Then, as the year grew older, bunches of bright coral hung over it from top to bottom. We consider our Barberries as not the least important of our fruit crop. We preserve them, some in bunches, some picked like Currants. We crystallize them in sugar, and they become deliciousbonbons. We steep them in salt and water, and they keep as a gay garnish for cold meat or game. Our Barberry-tree is not looking its best at present; a big branch has withered, and I must cut it in.

October 24.—Since I wrote we have had a great gale, which has swept over us, and torn down an Elm in the wood and a fine Chestnut in the croft. I could ill spare either of them, and it is but poor comfort to think that our piled-up logs will outlast the winter. It was the "wild west wind," of which Shelley sings, which has done the mischief; and smaller branches, lying scattered all over the lawn and walks, show us where it passed.

We are now preparing our Mushroom bed, for we shall need it as the green vegetables fail us.I have said but little about the kitchen garden, for I do not suppose it differs much from that of other people. Our Peas have, however, served us particularly well, and we had our last dish on October 1—later than I ever before have known them here. One excellent vegetable I have generally grown, and I would thoroughly recommend it to any one who has space to spare: it is the French White Haricot. It is not often seen with us though it is so very common in France. It is a species of French Bean, of which you eat the white bean itself instead of slicing up the pod. I suspect that, taking England through, there are very few gardens where the White Haricot is found.

We are now busy with our planting. Some Rhododendrons and Aucubas in the borders near the front gate have been pining away—starved by the Elm-tree roots around them. We are trenching up the ground, cutting away what smaller roots we can, and putting in manure and some new shrubs. We are planting a row of Hollies to screen a wall towards the lane. We are moving a Salisburia adiantifolia, with its strange foliage like a gigantic Maidenhair Fern, from a corner into a more prominent place. We shall then set to work to re-arrange the rockery. This, I think,I have never mentioned. In the middle of the little wood was once a pond, but I found the stagnant water and the soaking leaves, which fell and rotted there, no advantage to the place; I therefore drained away the water and planted beds of Azaleas and Rhododendrons along the slopes, with Primroses, Violets, and Blue Bells, and in the middle of all I have lately placed a tuft of Pampas-grass. On one slope I have managed a rockery with a stone tank in the centre, where for three summers past has flowered an Aponogeton distachyon. I have means of turning on fresh water into the tank, and I am well repaid for any trouble, as the little white boat-blossoms, laden with delicious spicy scent, rise up to the surface of their tiny lake. The rockery is, however, too much under the shade and drip of trees, and I cannot hope that delicate alpine flowers should grow there. Sedums and Saxifragas, Aquilegias, Aubrietias, the white Arabis, and the yellow Moneywort, besides Ferns of various kinds, all do well. In another part of the wood is a loggery, which I have entirely covered with the large white Bindweed, which rambles about at its own will, and opens its blossoms, sometimes a dozen at a time, all through the summer months. Past that, thereis a little patch of Bluebells, then more beds of Rhododendrons, and then a short walk, which takes us by a private path to the village church, and then by another branch returns again towards the house. In this part of the grounds there is still room for planting, and I shall probably try some Tree Rhododendrons. A standard Honeysuckle, which I have endeavoured to grow, has done no good as yet; its shoots get nipped by the north-east winds, but I do not yet despair. The most useful undergrowth I find is the Elder; it thrives wonderfully, and is covered with blossom and with berry. One variety, the Parsley-leaved Elder, is here equally hardy with the common Elder, and much more graceful in its growth.

We have now to take in our tender and half-hardy plants, for fear of a sudden frost. The large Myrtles, which have stood out in their boxes, must be placed in safety, and the Lobelia cardinalis and other bedding-plants, which we may need next year, must be removed.

The Wood and the Withered Leaves—Statues—Sun-dials—The Snow—Plans for the Spring—Conclusion.

November 7.—The soft autumn weather still spares what flowers the rains have left us, and here and there are signs as if of another spring. Violets along the grass walks, Strawberries in flower, and to-day a little yellow Brier Rose blossoming on an almost leafless spray, remind us of the early months of the year that is no more. But here, too, are some of the flowers of November. The Arbutus has again opened its bunches of waxen pink, and the Chrysanthemums are again blooming on the shrubbery beds. The year has all but completed its circle since first I wrote these notes, and I speak to-day of the flowers, the same, yet not the same, as those of which I wrote eleven months ago.

The trees have lost nearly every leaf, and ourlittle wood is bare as the wood wherein poor Millevoye, so soon to die, once strolled when

"De la dépouille de nos boisL'automne avait jonché la terre;Le bocage était sans mystèreLe rossignol était sans voix.""The autumn's leafy spoil lay strewnThe forest paths along;The wood had lost its haunted shade,The nightingale his song."

Had there been in happier days a "mystère" beyond the charm of waving branches and whispering leaves?

Another French poem on a withered leaf is better known, for it was Macaulay who translated Arnault's verses, and rendered the last three lines so perfectly:—

"Je vais où va toute chose,Où va la feuille de Rose,Et la feuille de Laurier.""Thither go I, whither goesGlory's laurel, Beauty's rose."

Among my ideas—I cannot call it plan, for my mind is not quite made up about it—I half fancy putting up a statue of some sort in a nook in the little wood, where the Beeches grow the tallest and the Elders are the thickest. Such things were once common, and then they got so common, and oftenso out of place, that they became absurd. Every villa garden had its statue and its rockery.

Batty Langley has an amusing chapter about statues. He says—"Nothing adds so much to the beauty and grandeur of gardens as fine statues, and nothing is more disagreeable than when they are wrongly placed; as Neptune on a terrace walk, mound, &c.; or Pan, the god of sheep, in a large basin, canal, or fountain;" and then, "to prevent such absurdities," he gives the most elaborate directions. Mars and Jupiter, Fame and Venus, Muses and Fates, Atlas, Hercules, and many more, are for open centres or lawns. Sylvanus, Actæon, and Echo, are among those recommended for woods. Neptune, Oceanus, and the Naiades, will do for canals and fish-ponds. Pomona and the Hesperides for orchards, Flora and Runcina ("the goddess of weeding") for flower-gardens, Bacchus for vineyards, Æolus for high terrace walks, and "the goddess Vallonta" for valleys. He gives the right deities for paddocks, for wheat-fields, for "ambuscados," and for beehives. In short there is no place for which he does not think a statue ornamental and appropriate. I hope he would approve of my own very humble idea, which is a statue of Hyacinthus,—for, where I thought of placing it,the wild Hyacinths or Bluebells will come clustering up, and make the grass all blue. The poetry of gardens is so entirely neglected in these days of "bedding stuff," that it is well to do anything that can properly be done, without extravagance of taste or method, to revive it.

In the inner garden I think also of placing a sun-dial, which would be in good keeping with the rather formal character of the beds. Mrs. Gatty's beautiful book on sun-dials should help me to a motto. They are of two sorts—the mottoes that warn, and the mottoes that console. "The night cometh,"[11]or "Pereunt et imputantur," are good examples of the one; "Horas non numero nisi serenas," or "Post tenebras lucem spero," are the best instances of the other. But there is a verse by Mrs. Browning, which (if I may so adapt it by a slight alteration in the second line) would make a finer inscription still—

"See, the shadow on the dial,In the lot of every one,Marks the passing of the trial,Proves the presence of the sun."

Nov. 28.—We wake to find snow all thick upon the ground, over lawn and flower-bed, and the children are out betimes rolling up huge snowballs on the grass. This snow is the best thing possible for the garden, for we have already had a night or two of sharp frost, which killed all it could reach of our herbaceous plants. "Autumn's last delights were nipped by early cold," as in the garden of Lord Houghton's "Old Manorial Hall," and the Dahlias and the Fuchsias were all shrivelled into brown unsightly tufts. We have covered up the Fig-trees on the wall. We have trenched up the shrubbery borders. We have done our last planting—a Catalpa in one place, a Paulownia in another—and some more fruit-trees in the orchard. We have planted our bulbs and sowed our autumn annuals for spring gardening. I was so pleased with the Nemophila bed of last May that I am repeating the experiment on a larger scale. I shall have one bed of Nemophila, and another of Virginian Stock. I shall have a bed of pink Saponaria edged with white. Along the Vine border I shall stretch a ribbon of white Saponaria, blue Myosotis, pink Silene, and many-coloured Sweet Peas.

Then again, at the end of the grass walk, where it runs up against the hedge of the croft, I amfixing an arched trelliswork of wire, with a wire seat inside, and over it I shall train and trail the broad leaves of the Aristolochia and the scarlet blossoms of the Tropæolum speciosum.

The vineries are of course at rest; but in them are Roman Hyacinths, now ready for the house, and pots of Polyanthus Narcissus will be also ready within a week.

The porch of the house is filled on either side with stages of Chrysanthemums, and the fine glossy foliage of an Aralia looks well in the inside vestibule.

And now I bring these notes to an end. My aim has been to show how much interest and pleasure may be gathered out of a garden of moderate pretensions, and with no great appliances in the way of glass, nor any advantage in the way of climate.

I have endeavoured, too, to reclaim for our English gardens those old flowers, which Shakespeare and Milton and Marvell and Cowley loved. They have been far too long neglected for flowers, whose only charm is charm of colour and a certain evenness of growth. The ordinary bedded garden of to-day is as inferior to the Elizabethan gardens of old, as all gardens anywhere mustbe to the delights, which fancy conjures up in the enchanted gardens of Armida, or the bowered pleasance of Boccaccio. Meanwhile we can only do what best we can, and when all else fails we can say, like Candide, "Il faut cultivernotrejardin."

And so I bid a hearty farewell to those readers, who for months past have followed the fortunes, and shared with me the hopes, of a year in a Lancashire garden.

Flowering Shrubs—Yuccas—Memorial Trees—Ranunculus—Pansies—Canna Indica—Summer Flowers—Bluets—Fruit-blossoms and Bees—Strawberry Leaves—Garden Sounds—Mowing—Birds—The Swallow—Pleasures of a Garden.

Almost more interesting than herbaceous plants are the flowering shrubs. Most beautiful of all, if, indeed, it may be called a shrub, is the Buddleia Globosa, in the inner garden, which I have already mentioned. When June draws to its close, it is laden with thousands of blossoms like little golden oranges, and fills the air with honied scent. It is the largest Buddleia I ever happen to have seen, for it stands sixteen feet high, and stretches its branches over a round bed of blue Iris to a circumference of seventy feet.

And just about the time when the Buddleia is in bloom, masses of the sweet homely English Elder, screening off the little wood, will perfume all the approach to the house. Common enoughit is, but delightful in its dark foliage, its rich creamy blossoms, its clusters of purple berries. We do not make the use of it we should, and Elderberry water and Elderberry Wine are known to me by name alone, but the berries are excellent for tarts and puddings.

One shrub which I planted a year or two ago has answered far better than I had any right to hope. It is the Desfontainea Spinosa. It is so like a holly that it puzzles everybody who sees, for the first time, the scarlet and yellow tubes of blossom which stand out among the prickly leaves. The year before last it flowered twice with me, but the cruel winter we have just had has cut it sadly, and it will be long before it will recover.

I have spoken of trying whether by the planting of a second Arbutus I could make my beautiful old shrub fruit. The result has been quite successful, and I have had for two years past bright red berries hanging down among the pale waxen blossoms and the dark-green leaves. The Magnolia between the vineries has become prodigal of flowers as it has grown older, and last year I had no less than ten blossoms from it, and it is still young. The Magnolia (also a Grandiflora) on the househas also begun to flower, but I had nearly lost it altogether, and the story is rather a curious one. I had noticed that both it and other creepers were looking unhappy, and I could not guess the reason. The Escallonia showed bare branches in many places, the Ceanothus seemed shrunken and brown, and a Gloire de Dijon Rose did no good. At last it occurred to my gardener that the galvanised wire, which I had put up to avoid driving nails into the stone work of the windows, was to blame. I pulled it all down, coated it thickly over with paint, and, when it was again put up, all the creepers seemed to start into fresh life, and grew strong and vigorous.

On a patch of green grass near the house stands a Yucca Gloriosa, which I am always hoping will flower, but it has never done so yet. Not long ago I was at a stately place in Shropshire, and at the end of a broad walk, where a circle of Yuccas had been planted, there were no less than five in full flower, throwing up pale jets of blossom, like fountains, towards the sky. I never saw anything more perfect in its way. But it is said that the right time to see a Yucca is by moonlight. There is a very striking passage in one of the letters of the mostremarkable of American women, Margaret Fuller (afterwards Countess D'Ossoli), in which she says:—

"This flower" (it was the Yucca Filamentosa) "was made for the moon as the Heliotrope is for the sun, and refuses other influences, or to display her beauty in any other light. Many white flowers are far more beautiful by day. The lily, for instance, with its firm thick leaf, needs the broadest light to manifest its purity, but these transparent leaves of greenish white, which look dull in the day, are melted by the moon to glistening silver...." The second evening I went out into the garden again. In clearest moonlight stood my flower, more beautiful than ever. The stalk pierced the air like a spear; all the little bells had erected themselves around it in most graceful array, with petals more transparent than silver, and of softer light than the diamond. Their edges were clearly but not sharply defined—they seemed to have been made by the moon's rays. The leaves, which had looked ragged by day, now seemed fringed by most delicate gossamer, and the plant might claim, with pride, its distinctive epithet offilamentosa.

On another grass-plot near I have one of the beautiful Retinosporas of Japan, which was oneday planted for me by a friend. He is the poet, who says that—

"Eastward roll the orbs of heaven,Westward tend the thoughts of men:Let the Poet, nature-driven,Wander Eastward now and then:—"

and this tree, while it lives, will remind me of the East, and of him who wrote these lines.

But there are other pleasant ways of recalling one's friends to memory.

I never stay anywhere, where there is a garden, without bringing back with me some one or more shrubs, as a remembrance of a beautiful place or happy hours; and, when I plant them, I fasten to them a label, mentioning their old home, and thus I am reminded—now of a quaint low house covered with creepers and nestling among the hills of Wales—now of a magnificent castle with its pleasance in the north of Ireland,—now of a great hall in Scotland, where a wild glen runs down past the garden to the woods,—now of an old English abbey, where the flowers of to-day spring up among the ruins of a thousand years ago.

Among the flowers in the inner garden, which have well repaid me during the last year or two, have been the Anemones—delightful old flowers—"pied wind-flowers," Shelley calls them,—which first sprang to birth when Venus wept Adonis. Then I have had two successful beds of Ranunculus; one was prettily and fancifully mottled; the other was of the finest scarlet,—a scarlet so intense that it seemed to be almost black in the inner shadows of the petals. A gifted American lady once said to me—"Does not black seem to underlie all bright scarlet?" and I have thought of this as I have looked at this bed of Ranunculus, and I think of it often as I see the red coats of our soldiers passing by. I have often noticed, too, that, in an evening, when there is still light enough to see flowers, that are yellow, or blue, or pink, the blossoms of a scarlet Pelargonium give forth no colour, but look as if cut out of some soft black velvet. Another spring bed, from which I had hoped much, has disappointed me. It was a bed of Crown Imperials, but for some reason they flowered irregularly and produced no effect. But the individual flowers of some were magnificent. I had never examined a Crown Imperial properly before, and never knew that its great beauty lay in the little circlet of pearls—nectaries, I suppose they are—which lie at the bottom of each orange bell. They are quite exquisite in their grey and white glitteringmovement, as the light plays upon them, and are more like pearls than anything else in nature.

Among my humbler flowers, of which I have somehow made no mention, is the Pansy, yet few flowers have more associations connected with them. The Pansy—theHeartseasewe still sometimes call it—is Shakespeare's "Love in Idleness," and Milton's "Pansy freak'd with jet." The American poet, Edgar Poe, speaks of the "beautiful Puritan Pansies;" and I remember a fine wild passage in one of this same poet's little-known essays, where two angels are talking, and one of them says—"We will swoop outward into the starry meadows beyond Orion, where for Pansies, and Violets, and Heartsease, are the beds of the triplicate and triple-tinted suns."

Last year my finest bed was one of the Canna Indica, in which every plant threw up grand broad leaves and spikes of crimson or yellow blossom. Why is not the Canna far more common in all our gardens? At present one sees it in public parks, or where gardening on a great scale is carried on, but in smaller gardens it is very rare, and yet it is easy enough to grow; and once I think it must have been more known than it is at present. Gerarde speaks of it as "the floweringreed," and gives a very fair illustration of it. He adds, however, "Myself have planted it in my garden divers times, but it never came to flowering or seeding, for that it is very impatient to endure the injury of our cold climate." Cowley, too, speaks of the "lustre of the Indian flowering reed;" and Dr. Darwin, in hisLoves of the Plants, gives it (with its single pistil and stamen), as the best type of the conjugal fidelity of flowers, and tells how—

"The tall Canna lifts his curlèd brow,Erect to heaven;"

adding, in prose, that "the seeds are used as shot by the Indians, and are strung for prayer-beads in some Catholic countries." Indeed, the plant is often called the "Indian Shot," and as the seeds, shining, hard and black, ripened with me last year, I canunderstandhow appropriate is the name.

A bed of double Potentillas, some red, some yellow, and some with the two colours mingled, has been very fine; and so has a bed of hybrid Bulbous Begonias, which seem quite hardy. I plant the blue Lobelia between them, and it contrasts pleasantly with their crimson and orange bells. A long row of Sweet Peas of every varietyof colour extends along the border in front of the vinery, and fills the garden with its scent; and not far off is a wire screen, which I cover with the large Convolvulus, and through the summer months the "Morning Glories," as the blossoms were once called, display all their short-lived beauty.

On either side of the grass-walk, which runs down the garden, at a right angle to the vineries, I am making rustic trellises of logs of wood, round which I shall plant Vegetable Marrows and Gourds, and at intervals clumps of the great Sunflower.[12]In another corner I am sowing a bed of the Bluet, or Corn-flower, the favourite flower of the Emperor of Germany. For some reason the Violets of Napoleon, of which I once had abundance, have not been so successful with me during the last few years,—will the Corn-flower do better?—What a glorious blue it is! and how much we have neglected it! because, I suppose, it is too common, and grows wild amid the ripening Corn and the scarlet Poppy.

Turning to the fruit-garden, my great discovery has been that Imusthave bees—not at all for the honey, but for the proper setting of the fruit. A large May Duke Cherry is always covered withblossom, but scarcely anything has ever come from it. Last year I examined its blossom closely, and found that the pistil is so much longer than the stamens that it cannot fertilise itself, and must be dependent on insects. This is not the case with other varieties of Cherries, so far as I can see, and I am curious to find out whether my remedy of a bee-hive will this year have the desired effect. I believe it will be of service to the other wall-fruit too, and I have already seen the affection the bees have for the blossoms of the Apricot.

How beautiful a garden is when all the fruit-trees are in bloom! and how various that bloom is! Each Pear-tree bears a different blossom from its neighbour, and the handsomest of all, in size and shape of flower and form of cluster, is the Jargonelle. But no Pear-blossom can compare with the beauty of blossom on the Apple-trees;—and of all Apple-trees the Pomeroy is most beautiful, when every bough is laden with clusters of deep-red buds, which shade off into the softest rosy white, as, one by one, the blossoms open out.

Of other fruit I have nothing new to notice, unless it be to ask whether any one now living can smell the scent of dying Strawberry leaves? Weall remember how Mrs. Gaskell in her delightful story gives Lady Ludlow the power, but now we all seem to have lost it. Certainly my dying Strawberry leaves give me no sense of sweetness. Was it a mere fond and foolish fancy? or were the Strawberries of Elizabethan gardens different from those we are now growing? Bacon tells us that, next to the white double Violet and the Musk Rose, the sweetest perfume in the open air is "Strawberry leaves dying, which yield a most excellent cordiale smell;" and I find in an old play by Sir John Suckling—

"WholesomeAs dying leaves of Strawberries."

But there are sounds that haunt a garden hardly less delightful than its sights and scents. What sound has more poetry in it than when in the early morning one hears the strong sharp sweep of the scythe, as it whistles through the falling grass, or the shrill murmur of the blade upon the whetstone; and, in spite of mowing machines, at times one hears the old sound still. How fond Andrew Marvell was of mowing and the mowers! He has given us "Damon the Mower," "The Mower to the Glow-worm," "The Mower's Song," "The Moweragainst Gardens," and "Ametas and Thestylis making Hay-ropes;" and again, in his fine poem, on "Appleton House," he describes the "tawny mowers" dividing the "grassy deeps,"

"With whistling scythe and elbow strong."

One of our latest poets too, Mr. Allingham, has a delicious little mower's song, with a quite perfect refrain of—

"A scythe-sweep and a scythe-sweep,We mow the grass together."

And again, what does not the garden owe to the voice of birds; the deep cawing of the rook in its "curious flight" around the elm-trees; the clear note of the cuckoo from the limes that bound the orchard; and, best of all, the rich, full melody of the thrush! The nightingale's song may be sweeter and stronger, but the nightingale only sings in certain places (certainly not with us), and the thrush is everywhere. The nightingale sings later in the night, but the thrush will go on till nine, and begin again at four, and surely that is all we need. Can anything be truer, or better said, than these lines of Browning's about a thrush?—

"Hark! where my blossomed Pear-tree in the hedgeLeans to the field, and scatters on the cloverBlossoms and dewdrops, at the bent spray's edge—That's the wise thrush—he sings each song twice over,Lest you should think he never could recaptureThe first fine careless rapture."

But there is one bird dearer to us than the thrush, and that is the swallow, which for some years past has built its nest in our porch. It has been pretty to mark her skimming round and round with anxious watching, till we have left the place. Prettier still, when we have kept ourselves concealed, to see her darting upwards to the nest, which was fringed by four little heads all in a row, and, going from one to the other, give each its share. We could hear the sharp little cry of satisfaction as each nestling was attended to. How much the poets have written about swallows! There is the charming passage in Longfellow's "Golden Legend," where the old monk is speaking; he is the librarian, whose duty it is to illuminate the missals for the convent's use and pride:—

"How the swallows twitter under the eaves!There, now there is one in her nest;I can just catch a glimpse of her head and breast,And will sketch her thus in her quiet nook,For the margin of my gospel-book."

Then how delightful is the boast, which Mr. Courthope, in hisParadise of Birds, puts into the nightingale's mouth, that a bird is better than a man, for—

"He never will mount as the swallows,Who dashed round his steeples to pair,Or hawked the bright flies in the hollowsOf delicate air."

And, long before this, Banquo had marked their "pendent beds" on Macbeth's castle, and noticed that—

"Where they most breed and haunt, I have observedThe air is delicate."

And who does not recall Tennyson's—

"Swallow, swallow, flying, flying south,"

and bearing on swift wing the message that—

"Dark and true and tender is the north"?

Or who, that has once read it, can forgetLes Hirondellesof Béranger, and how the French captive among the Moors questions the swallows about his country, his home, his friends, which they perhaps have seen?

Lastly, what a felicitous line is this of the American poet Lowell, when he describes

"The thin-winged swallowskatingon the air."

I must bring these Notes, such as they are, to a close, and yet I feel I have scarcely even yet described the pleasures of a garden. But my memory at least can do it justice. It recalls summer afternoons, when the lawn tennis went merrily on on the lawn, by the weeping ash-tree, and summer evenings, when the house was too hot, and we sat out after dinner upon the terrace with the claret and the fruit. The air was all perfume, and the light lingered long in the east over the church steeple three miles away, and no sound but of our own voices broke the silence and the peace.

Again, there were fine bright autumn days—days when the garden was full of warm scent and warmer colour—days when the children could swing for hours in the hammock, which hangs between two large Sycamores, and have their tea-table beneath the trees,—days when the still air was only stirred by the patter of a falling chestnut, or the note of some solitary bird, or the sound of church bells far away. Beyond the grass-field, which comes nearly up to the house, was a field of wheat, and we could watch the harvesting, and follow with our eyes the loaded waggons as they passed along by the hedge-row trees.

But such recollections grow thicker as I write, and words, such as I at least can command, do them little justice. I cannot really share with my readers these pleasures of the past, though I like to fancy that they may feel some kindly sympathy, as they remember happy days in gardens dear to them as mine to me.

I contributed the following note on "The Viola of the Romans," to theGardeners' Chronicleof September 26, 1874, as I found a correspondent had been adopting Lord Stanhope's views.

Mr. Ruskin in hisQueen of the Airwrote, "I suspect that the flower whose name we translate 'Violet' was in truth an Iris" (he is speaking of the Greekion, but the Viola no doubt is whatever theionwas).

In Lord Stanhope'sMiscellanies, second series, which was published in 1872, a paper, which had been previously (in 1830) read before the Society of Antiquaries, treats of the "Viola of the Ancients."

Lord Stanhope identifies it with the Iris, and on the following grounds:—

1. Because when riding through Sicily in the winter of 1825, he saw many Irises and no Violets, and heard that the country people called the Iris Viola.

2. Because Pliny speaks of Violæ luteæ, whereas there are no Violets of that colour.

3. Because Pliny also describes the Violet as growing in sunny and barren places ("apricis et macris locis"), whereas really Violets always grow in the shade.

4. Because he speaks of the Violet as springing from a fleshy root-stock ("ab radice carnoso"), whereas the Violet root is fibrous.

5. Because Ovid couples the Violet with the Poppy and the Lily as flowers which, when broken off, hang their heads to the ground.

I need not say much as to Lord Stanhope's not finding Violets in Sicily in winter, for the question is, whether he would not find them in Italy in spring. Nor does the fact of the Sicilian peasants speaking of the Iris as a Violet disturb me any more than when I hear a Scotch peasant speak of the "Harebell" as a "Bluebell."

The real authority is Pliny, and Pliny settles the question completely. He says (I quote for convenience from Bohn's translated edition):—"Next after the Roses and the Lilies, the Violet is held in the highest esteem. Of this there are several varieties, the purple, the yellow, and the white, all of them reproduced from plants, like the Cabbage. The Purple Violet, which springs up spontaneously in sunny spots with a thin meagre soil, has larger petals than the others, springing immediately from the root, which is of a fleshy substance. This Violet has a name, too, distinct from the other wild kinds, being called 'ion,' and from it the ianthine cloth takes its name."

He goes on to say that of cultivated kinds the Yellow Violet is held in most esteem. He speaks then of the Tusculan and Marine Violet as having broader petals thanthe others, but being less sweet, while the Calathian Violet is also without scent.

A little farther on he describes the Iris itself, and says "the stem of this plant is a cubit in length and erect, the flower being of various colours like the rainbow, to which circumstance it is indebted for its name." It is, he adds, a plant of a caustic nature, and the root is used in perfumery and medicine, but the flower isnever employed for garlands.

After this, perhaps, it is needless to add that of course Lord Stanhope is mistaken in supposing that there are no Yellow Violets (he may find any number half-way up the Rigi), or that Violets do not often grow in sunny and sterile places, or that the Purple Violet has not a fleshy root-stock.

That the Sweet Violet, which Pliny says was used for wreath-making, was generally cultivated is certain from Horace's

"TumviolariaetMyrtus, et omnis copia nariumSpargent olivetis odorem."

Odes, ii. 15.

Then, again, the Sweet Violet was used for the flavouring of wine—the "vinum violatum."

There are other passages in which Pliny speaks of the sweetness of the Violet. He says it is sweetest at a distance, and that it has no scent except in the flower itself.

There can be no doubt then whatever (I conceive) that the Greeks, when they spoke of the "ion," or the Romans of the "Viola," generally meant our Violet, and that the Violet-wreaths were made from this familiar flower.

Still the name was perhaps loosely used, and it is highly probable that the flower to which Ovid refers, in the passage which Lord Stanhope quotes, was the Snowflake or Leucoion (literally, "White Violet").

I was much pleased to see my observations on the Azalea as a fly-catcher confirmed by a subsequent paragraph (October 3, 1874,) in theGardeners' Chronicle. It is interesting, and I now reprint it.

Azalea Viscosa a Fly-catcher.

Under this heading Mr. W. W. Bailey gives the following observations in the current number of theAmerican Naturalist:—

"The many curious observations published of late in regard to vegetable fly-catchers have opened my eyes to such phenomena as are presented in my forest walks. As is well known to all botanists, our sweet swamp Azalea (Azalea viscosa) has its corolla covered on the outside with innumerable clammy and glandular hairs. Each hair is a prolongation of the cuticle, and is surmounted by a purple and globular band. In the bud these hairs appear to cover the whole surface of the flower, but when the corolla expands they are seen to occupy the midrib of the petals as well as the tube of the corolla. These glandular hairs are efficacious fly-catchers, but what the object is in thus securing insect prey I will not pretend to state. I have been amusing myself, if any suchapparently cruel occupation can be considered entertaining, in watching the capture of flies by the Azaleas. When I first brought the flowers home, many small insects, as winged ants, were entrapped amidst the hairs. These have remained alive several days, still vainly struggling for freedom. As the house-flies are abundant in my room, it occurred to me that I might extirpate the pests, and at the same time learn something of the process of insect-catching. I have not noticed that the powerful fragrance of the blossoms attracts the house-fly, although I have no doubt that it does the smaller insects. It seemed to be accidental when the house-flies were captured. I exposed a number of buds and fully-opened blossoms on a sunny window-sill thronged with flies. It was not many minutes before I had several captives. A mere touch of a fly's leg to the glutinous hairs was sufficient for his detention. A struggle only made matters worse, as other legs were by this means brought in contact with the glands. These emit long glairy threads, which fasten to the hairs of the flies' legs. They may be drawn out to a great length and tenuity, still retaining their strength. If two buds are pressed together, and then drawn apart, innumerable threads may be seen to bind them. There is a complete network of them between the various glands. They will confine the strongest fly; he is at once held like Gulliver among the Lilliputians. Under the microscope the legs of the fly are seen to be covered with the secretion, which is perfectly white and transparent. In one attempt to escape, a house-fly lifted a flower bodily from the window-sill, perhaps a quarter of an inch, but at once sank back exhausted amidst the hairs. One, after long efforts, escaped, but seemedincapable of using its legs; it flew away readily. In one instance I have found the dried remains of a small insect embedded amidst the hairs, but cannot say whether its juices were in any way absorbed by the plant. If such assimilation takes place, what is its purpose? Can this phenomenon of fly-catching be accidental, or is some nice purpose concealed in it? I merely state the facts as I have observed them; perhaps others can supply further information."

It is very curious to compare the two following passages of two great masters of style—Ruskin and Michelet—both writing of the tribe to which belongs the Tomato. Ruskin, inThe Queen of the Air, p. 91, says:—

"Next, in the Potato, we have the scarcely innocent underground stem of one of a tribe set aside for evil, having the deadly nightshade for its queen, and including the henbane, the witch's mandrake, and the worst natural curse of modern civilisation—tobacco. And the strange thing about this tribe is, that though thus set aside for evil, they are not a group distinctly separate from those that are happier in function. There is nothing in other tribes of plants like the form of the bean blossom; but there is another family with forms and structure closely connected with this venomous one. Examine the purple and yellow bloom of the common hedge Nightshade;—you will find it constructed exactly like some of theforms of the Cyclamen; and getting this clue, you will find at last the whole poisonous and terrible group to be—sisters of the Primulas."The nightshades are, in fact, primroses with a curse upon them, and a sign set in their petals by which the deadly and condemned flower may always be known from the innocent one,—that the stamens of the nightshades are between the lobes, and of the primulas opposite the lobes of the corolla."

"The nightshades are, in fact, primroses with a curse upon them, and a sign set in their petals by which the deadly and condemned flower may always be known from the innocent one,—that the stamens of the nightshades are between the lobes, and of the primulas opposite the lobes of the corolla."

Now for M. Michelet. InLa Sorcière, p. 119, he writes of the herbs used by the witches:—

"Ce que nous savons le mieux de leur médecine, c'est qu'elles employaient beaucoup, pour les usages les plus divers, pour calmer, pour stimuler, une grande famille de plantes, équivoques, fort dangereuses, qui rendirent les plus grands services. On les nomme avec raison, lesConsolantes(Solanées)."Famille immense et populaire, dont la plupart des espèces sont surabondantes, sous nos pieds, aux haies, partout. Famille, tellement nombreuse, qu'un seul de ses genres a huit cents espèces. Rien de plus facile à trouver, rien de plus vulgaire. Mais ces plantes sont la plupart d'un emploi fort hasardeux. Il a fallu de l'audace pour en préciser les doses, l'audace peut-être du génie."Prenons par en bas l'échelle ascendante de leurs énergies. Les premières sont tout simplement potagères et bonnes à manger (les aubergines, les tomates, mal appelées pommes d'amour). D'autres de ces innocentes sont le calme et la douceur même, les molènes (bouillon blanc), si utiles aux fomentations."Vous rencontrez au dessus une plante déjà suspecte, que plusieurs croyaient un poison, la plante miellée d'abord, amère ensuite, qui semble dire le mot de Jonathas: 'J'ai mangé un peu de miel, et voilà pourquoi je meurs.' Mais cette mort est utile, c'est l'amortissement de la douleur. La douce-amère, c'est son nom, dut être le premier essai de l'homœopathie hardie, qui, peu à peu, s'éleva aux plus dangereux poisons. La légère irritation, les picotements qu'elle donne purent la désigner pour remède des maladies dominantes de ces temps, celles de la peau."

"Famille immense et populaire, dont la plupart des espèces sont surabondantes, sous nos pieds, aux haies, partout. Famille, tellement nombreuse, qu'un seul de ses genres a huit cents espèces. Rien de plus facile à trouver, rien de plus vulgaire. Mais ces plantes sont la plupart d'un emploi fort hasardeux. Il a fallu de l'audace pour en préciser les doses, l'audace peut-être du génie.

"Prenons par en bas l'échelle ascendante de leurs énergies. Les premières sont tout simplement potagères et bonnes à manger (les aubergines, les tomates, mal appelées pommes d'amour). D'autres de ces innocentes sont le calme et la douceur même, les molènes (bouillon blanc), si utiles aux fomentations.

"Vous rencontrez au dessus une plante déjà suspecte, que plusieurs croyaient un poison, la plante miellée d'abord, amère ensuite, qui semble dire le mot de Jonathas: 'J'ai mangé un peu de miel, et voilà pourquoi je meurs.' Mais cette mort est utile, c'est l'amortissement de la douleur. La douce-amère, c'est son nom, dut être le premier essai de l'homœopathie hardie, qui, peu à peu, s'éleva aux plus dangereux poisons. La légère irritation, les picotements qu'elle donne purent la désigner pour remède des maladies dominantes de ces temps, celles de la peau."

Speaking of magical herbs reminds one of the "moly," which Mercury gives to Ulysses, and which enabled him to withstand the enchantments of Circe. This "moly" with its white blossom is particularly well known to me, for, when I first came to my present house, the wood near the lodge was so full of it that it seemed as if a dinner of onions was for ever being cooked: I found it exceedingly hard to eradicate. "Moly" is none other than the Garlic, and Circe had apparently the same objection to it as had the wife of the Merchant of Bagdad in theArabian Nights.

By the way, what could Mr. Tennyson have been thinking of when he describes his lotus-eaters as

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