JANUARY 155 



reason. I must devote myself to finding out, if possible, 

 what the reason is. I see that Mr. Smee, in his book 

 'My Garden,' says they did the same with him. 



I have just gathered three beautiful, full white buds 

 off a Niphetos Rose in the conservatory next the draw- 

 ing-room. It is blooming extra early this year. 



January 6th. Fate caused me to go to Ireland about 

 this time last year. I dreaded the long night journey 

 and the arrival on the gray winter morning. But were 

 the steamers far less splendid sea -boats than they are, 

 and the waves every day as stormy as they sometimes 

 are, I think it still would be well worth while for any 

 garden -fancier to visit Ireland in January, if only to 

 admire and enjoy the luxuriant green of the evergreens 

 and the beauty of the winter -flowering shrubs. I had 

 never seen Garry a elllptica in full beauty before. It had 

 catkins six or seven inches long, flowering from end to 

 end, one little flower growing out of the other like a 

 baby chain made with cowslips. The Jasminum nudi- 

 fiorum was not a flowering branch here and there, as in 

 England, but one sheet of brilliant yellow flowers. This 

 beautiful plant is very easy to propagate by laying some 

 of the branches along the ground and covering them 

 with earth. In six or seven months they will have made 

 good root, and can be taken up and planted where de- 

 sired. One house I saw in the neighbourhood of Dublin 

 was covered on its southern side with the Clematis cir- 

 rhosa, or winter -flowering Clematis, from Algiers. The 

 house was an old one, much frequented by John Wesley 

 and mentioned in Southey's Life. On one of the thick, 

 strong walls, inside, was the following inscription 

 (translated, I believe, from the German) : 



The Angels, from their throne on high, 

 Look down on us with pitying eye, 



