Daffodils 



may be more beautiful bicolors for millionaires, but they 

 have not come my way yet. Lord Muncaster was taking 

 a proud place in lists quite lately at six guineas each, and I 

 felt much inclined to sell all mine but one, and lay out the 

 result in Weardales, but I have never yet sold a plant, and 

 I hope I am too old to begin. So his lordship is still here. 



I will try to tell you what charms I find in Weardale. 

 It is quite large enough for me. I do not want to sit 

 under a trumpet during a shower. Beyond a certain point, 

 size nearly always means coarseness, and I greatly dislike 

 the huge race of trumpet Daffodils so much to the fore in 

 some Dutch gardens. A small man might almost feel 

 nervous of looking down some of their trumpets, for fear 

 of falling in and getting drowned in the honey, and a life- 

 belt or two should be hung among the beds. As we have 

 not yet come to viewing our gardens from aeroplanes, we 

 can do without Rafflesia Arnoldii in the rock garden, and 

 the Waterbutt Trumpet Daffodil for mixed' borders. Even 

 the loveliest of fair damsels, magnified to the size of two 

 and a half elephants, would be an appalling object to the 

 stock-sized suitor, and until I have to take to much 

 stronger spectacles, Weardale is large enough for me. 



I like its proportions : the trumpet has not ceased to 

 be a trumpet and become instead a gramophone's mouth- 

 piece, but the wide, overlapping perianth segments make 

 the balance more perfect than would be the case were the 

 segments of a narrower type such as in the variety Duke 

 of Bedford. But I lay most stress on the colouring, 

 and the soft blending of its two main shades that is 

 so delightful to look at or imitate in paint. The base 

 of the trumpet pales a little at its base, and also picks up 

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