revealing a beauty which I have never seen in England, and Effect of 

 proving apparently that absence of severe cold and plenty of Climate 

 moisture are the more important considerations. In Scotland O n Plants 

 evidence of the same fact is met with over and over again 

 nowhere have I seen finer bloom on monthly Roses in the 

 autumn, and the large fragile flowers of Romneya Coulteri open 

 unscathed through August in spite of wind and wet. It is the 

 same with all the ordinary garden flowers ; they seem to revel 

 in the moisture. Annuals in Scotland last twice as long as with 

 us ; Sweet Peas grow eight feet high without any extra labour 

 expended on them, and continue making fresh, flowering shoots 

 till frost cuts them down, instead of putting all their energies into 

 ripening their pods as they do with us ! Delphiniums grow 

 eight or ten feet high with stalks like firm columns to every 

 flowering spike, and Campanula lactlflora is almost as 

 magnificent. 



It is true that I have only had glimpses of these Scotch 

 gardens in late July, August, September and October ; some 

 day I hope to see them in May and June, which are so wonder- 

 fully rich in beauty in the South, and almost hope to find that 

 they fall below ours then in excellence. One is always told 

 that Scotch springs are bad, and that the gardens do not develop 

 till late. This year, which certainly was an exceptionally late one, 

 I found still in flower in the gardens the first days of August 

 such plants as Spanish Iris, Campanula persicifolia, Pap aver 

 pilosum, Cluster Roses, Delphiniums, and many other things 

 which har been over with us weeks before, and at the 

 same tim~ Helianthemums and Echinops, Eryngiums and 

 Phloxes were all opening. This overlapping of the flowers adds 

 naturally to the richness of the effect, but soil and moisture play 



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