majority of those upon this comparatively sheltered coast, we Rhodo- 

 here find conditions more or less resembling what has been dendron 

 already described in the west of Ireland, for the flower- Cliffs of 

 garden, strictly so called, is a walled one. Only a painfully H O wth 

 orthodox-minded gardener would, however, insist upon limiting 

 that name to it, for the real flower-garden here is on the 

 contrary a garden which climbs, races, bounds up or down hill, 

 all but entirely at its own good pleasure. It is a garden which 

 at the right season offers to the eye cataracts, nothing short of 

 cataracts, of gorgeous colour, reds chiefly, but reds of every 

 shade, from deepest crimson to blush or pale salmon, a garden 

 which it is impossible to visit at its own time of year without 

 feeling that for once you realise how lordly this art of ours of 

 horticulture might become if only circumstances were often as 

 kindly, or if the scene of our operations could be often upon 

 such a scale as this ! It was the happy thought of the owner of 

 Howth a good many years ago to fill the whole of the broken 

 cliffy slopes nearest to his house partly with Azaleas, partly 

 with the better sorts of Rhododendron. The rocks of which 

 these slopes consist being wholly of micaceous granite, untainted 

 by any hint of the detested limestone, both plants have grown 

 and flourished in this surprising fashion, the grey sobriety of 

 the granite itself, unbroken save by a twinkle now and then 

 of mica where the sun touches it, bringing out the sumptuous- 

 ness of this colour which overlies, and as it were submerges it. 



That an effect so splendid should be shortlived is the only 

 reverse of the medal ! May past, and June on the wane, our 

 gorgeous flood of colour pales to a mere assemblage of 

 ordinary-looking evergreens and stretches of unimpressively 

 dark-green heather. Later, it is true, the last-named wakens up 



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