196 EVERSLEY GARDENS 



very different matter to the catkin-and-prim- 

 rose business. In Winter, therefore, for those 

 who do not possess a greenhouse or live near 

 a town where cut flowers can be bought, it 

 seems wiser to give up all such untimely and 

 unsatisfactory efforts, and to depend for de- 

 coration on pot plants, or on the bulbs that 

 are so easily grown, till once again 



" The hounds of Spring are on Winter's traces." 



We may, however, force on the hounds of 

 Spring in a very simple way, which I learnt 

 a few years ago from M. Moser in his famous 

 nursery grounds at Versailles. Flowering 

 shrubs were just beginning to bud ; and he 

 told me that if the slender shoots of Prunus 

 Pissardii were cut as soon as the leaf and 

 flower buds began to swell, and put in a vase 

 of water (the water must be plentiful, and 

 should be changed every third day) in a warm 

 room, leaves and flowers would quickly unfold. 

 This I have since done every Spring. Three 

 days after I cut them the buds are generally 

 ready to burst ; and a week later each shoot is 



