24 EVERSLEY GARDENS 



perish ; that it is hungry like the oxen, and 

 like them it must die. And when all land, rich 

 or poor, needs food, as do the plants, how 

 much more then does the light land of the 

 north of Hampshire need suitable nourish- 

 ment. 



It was said by a wise and great man that, 

 when the Almighty made the world, all the 

 rubbish was shot in the parish of Eversley, 

 so strangely varied is its soil. Eversley 

 gardeners, therefore, have something to con- 

 tend with ; but we have also cause for grati- 

 tude in this amazing variety, if we know how 

 to use it. Lying on the Bagshot Sands above 

 and the Bracklesham Beds below, we get golden 

 gravel and sand ; flints, glacier and water worn, 

 that grow again in a night after every one, 

 great and small, has been carefully picked off 

 a border; sour, marshy land down in the 

 valley, with a streak of clay here and there, 

 and cold, sandy marl ; deep leaf-mould in 

 little patches of primaeval forest of Oak and 

 Holly, " hanging upon the skirts of the moor," 

 to paraphrase Rosalind, " like fringe upon a 



