Spring Crocuses 



enough to stand the other way as a real one should, and 

 in an open flower we get a solid effect that would charm 

 the eye of such a florist as the great Glenny. 



I wish I could show you the Crocus frame and the 

 seed-beds on a sunny morning in early February, that you 

 might see these gems in the flesh instead of through this 

 printed page. Let us be childish enough to "make 

 believe " we are doing it. I will take my garden basket 

 and all its contents, almost as varied a collection as Alice's 

 White Knight had, but certainly more useful, even the 

 mouse-trap on too frequent occasions, while the cook's 

 forks to extract new treasures, and painted wooden labels 

 to mark them withal, are indispensable. It is noon, for I 

 have waited for you, my visitors, and your train was late, 

 delayed by a fog in town which here was only a rime 

 frost and white mist that the sun has conquered, and the 

 lawns are only dewy now in the shadows, so we can take 

 the short cut over them, passing the Snowdrop clumps and 

 Aconite carpets and hurrying on to make the most of the 

 sunshine, over the New River by the bridge guarded by 

 the weird lead ostriches, which are six feet high and give 

 some visitors a turn when they first see them. Into the 

 kitchen garden, and don't look at the peach-house Crocus 

 clumps yet, but hurry along past the vineries round by 

 the stove and then are they open ? Yes, even in the 

 seed-beds in the open air bees are busy on the lines of 

 colour. There are several lines of uniform lilac without 

 a break of a pure white or deep purple original-minded 

 babe ; the labels at their heads tell us they are Sieberi or 

 Tomasimanus, while solid yellow families are proclaimed 

 81 F 



