MAKING THE GARDEN 7 



fireguards wherever there were young children. 

 The poor babies would draw round what 

 seemed to be a dead fire on the hearth, and 

 hold up their little " pinnas " or their frocks 

 to dry, when a turf would crack, fall and 

 blaze up, as would the poor mites' clothes. 

 Never shall I forget some of the burns I saw 

 in my childhood from this cause. My turfs 

 were innocent of such possibilities; for the 

 farmer had cut them from the moor close by 

 to cover his big potato heap ; and now the 

 potatoes were sold, and the turfs well-rotted 

 and useless to him. I fell upon them as on 

 lost treasure, found them in perfect condition, 

 and got a neighbour to bargain for twenty 

 loads at a small price and draw them in for 

 me. Dug in with good manure where it was 

 needed, brown fibrous turfy loam, of which 

 more anon, and road-scrapings from Brick 

 House Hill full of fallen oak leaves from the 

 Mount, they made that long border one of 

 the best I have ever had. And in it Rhodo- 

 denrons, Azaleas, Japanese Roses, Penzance 

 Sweetbriars, and every sort of odd and end, 



