240 THE GARDEN, YOU, AND I 



of a dark red when ripe altogether a very decorative 

 plant, though extremely difficult to handle. 



After surveying the plantation on all sides, the tongs 

 used by the oyster dredges suggested themselves to 

 Horace, and thus grasped, the prickly pears were safely 

 moved and pegged in their new quarters with long pieces 

 of bent wire, the giant equivalents of the useful hairpins 

 that I recommended for pegging down your ferns. 



Now the entire plot of several yards square, appar- 

 ently untroubled by the removal, is in full bloom, and 

 has been for well-nigh a month, they say, though the in- 

 dividual blossoms are but things of a day. Close by, 

 another yellow flower, smaller but more pickable, is 

 just now waving, the rock rose or frostweed, bearing 

 two sorts of flowers : the conspicuous yellow ones, some- 

 what resembling small evening primroses, while all 

 the ground between is covered with an humble member 

 of the rock rose family the tufted beach heather 

 with its intricate branches, reminding one more of a club- 

 moss than a true flowering plant. Not a scrap of sand 

 in the enclosure is left uncovered, and the various plants 

 are set closely, like the grasses and wild flowers of a 

 meadow, the sand pinweed that we gather, together 

 with sea lavender, for winter bouquets much resembling 

 a flowering grass. 



