Violets, Cyclamen, and such-like shade-lovers are naturally, Shade 

 at this corner of the garden, the main inhabitants. Some of Lovers 

 these are growing, incongruously enough, in the hollowed 

 portions of a row of " querns " or ancient grinding-stones, their 

 innocent faces peering from holes meant to be filled with corn 

 for grinding. Further on, Lilies of the Valley, a perfect field 

 of them, are filling the large triangular space made by the 

 two angles of the wall. We may notice in passing that the 

 Cyclamen are at present engaged in pushing their seed-vessels 

 into the ground and covering them up with mould. I have 

 sometimes wondered why Cyclamen, both the Spring and the 

 Autumn varieties, seem, almost alone amongst vegetables, to 

 possess this power of acting as their own gardeners. His own 

 seedsman nearly every plant is, but when it comes to actually 

 burrowing into the soil, the rest have, as a rule, to wait for 

 the chance of finding some more or less clumsy two-legged 

 assistant to act for them. A Cyclamen, on the other hand, 

 tarries no such belated attention, but does its own spading. 

 With that powerful spiral stalk, which acts as an effective 

 lever, it is able to get the whole business finished before the 

 seed-vessels of other plants are often sufficiently "ripened off" 

 for collection. The advantage of such an apparatus is so 

 obvious that it seems odd so few plants have been provided 

 with it. 



That our big Yew is king of this garden there can, I 

 think, as we look round us, be no question. Other trees, 

 shrubs, and flowers add their grace and their glory to it, each 

 in its several degree, but he is the master, one might almost say 

 the creator, of it. In another walled garden, not far from this 

 one, the dominating spirit of the scene is, or lately was, a 



7 



