MAKING THE GARDEN 15 



and I have found that the black almost out- 

 strips the delightful balsam. But though the 

 Balsam gives but sparse shade, how delicious 

 it is in colour, scent, and sound. The huge 

 Balsam Poplars in the glebe field at the 

 Rectory were the delight of our childhood, 

 with their red catkins in Spring, and their 

 gently rustling leaves overhead in May-time, 

 when we made our big nest under the huge 

 one close to the gate much to dear old 

 George Chaplin's annoyance, as he said we 

 wasted such a lot of good hay " amucking it 

 about." But no garden, no park, can be 

 perfectly satisfactory to my mind without 

 the lofty, tapering spire of a Lombardy. 

 Even in Winter the upward growth of its 

 slender branches makes it a delightful object, 

 pale yellow against the blue distance or the 

 dark foliage of Hollies ; and when in Spring 

 its leaf buds open, its beauty is unsurpass- 

 able. What that beauty could be, I never fully 

 realised until one early June day at Aix-les- 

 Bains as I looked southward along the valley, 

 and a dozen great Poplars caught the^sun and 



