The Culmination of Spring 



An old man used to supply a great firm of druggists 

 with the dried plant at a much lower rate than they could 

 obtain it from any other source. When through age he 

 announced that he must give up the business he was asked 

 how he had always managed to undersell others, and he 

 told a delightful tale of a cunning practice. He used to 

 wander about in the Eastern Counties sowing Hemlock 

 seeds in any waste corner near cultivated lands, then when 

 the plant was fully grown he called upon the farmer and 

 told him that a dreadfully poisonous plant grew on his 

 land, and would kill beasts if eaten by them, and that for 

 a small sum he would clear it away. He was generally 

 paid for collecting his harvest, grown rent free on other 

 folks' land, and therefore could afford to sell it so cheaply. 

 Besides its medicinal value it is a very beautiful garden 

 plant, so in spite of Gerard I grow it. It is unfortunately 

 biennial or at any rate monocarpic, but makes the most of 

 its short life by keeping brilliantly green through the winter. 

 The leaves are as exquisitely cut as any I know of, and 

 wonderfully glossy. All through last winter these large 

 leaves and the already developing central shoot were as 

 beautiful as anything in the garden, and then from early 

 Spring till the seeds were ripe in July the fine specimen 

 shown in the photograph was always a thing of beauty, 

 although it was growing under the shade of an old Scots Pine, 

 and not the least of the Hemlock's virtues is this amiable 

 habit of growing and looking happy in any waste shady 

 corner. Beyond the Pine stem a good group of Thalictrum 

 aquilegiaefolium was delightfully effective against the purple 

 of Prunus Pissardii and Barbery. It is composed of some . 

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