CHAPTER X 



April Showers 



WHAT a blessed time it is for garden and gardener when 

 the wind goes round to the south-west and warm April 

 showers begin to fall. The real thing, of course, not the 

 chilly, wind-driven sorts compounded of sleet, hail, or ice- 

 cold rain that come from the north with slight variation 

 to east, and seem arranged on purpose to destroy the 

 Plum blossoms. They leave the air several degrees 

 colder, and if followed by a clear sky after sunset are the 

 forerunners of a killing frost. This form of April shower 

 belongs to what old country folk call Blackthorn Winter, 

 an annual spell of bad weather that we never escape in 

 the Eastern Counties. The only time I have been in 

 Cornwall in April, my familiar native Blackthorn Winter 

 accompanied me, and I saw the Rhododendrons and 

 Camellias turned brown as leather, young Colt's Foot 

 leaves singed by frost, and thick ice on tanks and pools. 

 Therefore I trembled to think of what Arctic conditions 

 must be prevailing here, but on my return found nothing 

 worse than usual had happened, and the plants, being more 

 backward than the pampered Cornish ones, had not 

 suffered very much. 



After a week or more of blizzards and squalls, and just 

 when everybody has decided that it is the most curious 

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