EARLY MODES OF CULTUEE. 1 9 



which might have done execution but for the panel of 

 the door intervening, which received an unmistakable 

 mark of violence. The tree, however, was cut, and it 

 could scarcely be said whether the Duke or the forester 

 in calm moments regretted the frolicsome and impul- 

 sive act most, for His Grace could never afterwards 

 speak of the transaction without showing unmistakable 

 signs of regret, and over it the forester is said to 

 have shed many tears ; and, after all, the tree is said 

 never to have been converted into the axle for which 

 it was cut down, but filled a higher and nobler destiny 

 in making articles of furniture. 



" The mothers " are what once constituted two of 

 the five greenhouse plants, and the house stood near 

 where the trees are now growing. The plants on 

 arrival from London were in fiower-pots, and were 

 regarded as rare and tender. How long they were 

 kept in the greenhouse is not now known, and 

 various reasons are assigned for putting them out- 

 side. One is, that the plants appeared sickly and 

 dying by shedding their leaves; but the other and 

 more likely reason is, that they grew so luxuriantly 

 and so tall that the houses could not contain them, 

 hence the necessity of putting them outside. 



Evelyn appears to have been as badly, if not worse, 

 served than the Duke of Athole, for he says regarding 

 it :' " The change of the colour of the old leaf made an 

 ignorant gardener of mine eradicate as dead those 

 which I had brought up with much care. Let this, 

 therefore, be a warning to others." 



