OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 



the Heather and the Gorse had likewise to be banished in 

 perpetuity. With miles of Heather and Gorse-clad moors 

 about one, Ericas of any kind, and certainly Ulex, how- 

 ever delightful in themselves and in their native habitat, 

 are distinctly de trop in the garden. 



Seen in wide masses, and whether in the brown, green, or 

 purple stage, Heather, as we know, is an ever 

 beautiful cloak to the earth. But except at the 

 height of its flowering richness, when it occurs 

 in scattered patches, its effect is apt to be 

 rusty and unkempt. As for the Gorse 

 gorgeous as it undoubtedly be at its full 

 golden time when seen in clumps on down 

 or roadside it has, at close quarters, a 

 ragged, dusty, almost leprous appear- 

 ance which quite unfits it for cultiva- 

 tion. It would seem as though all its 

 vital beauty were driven out to the flowering 

 tops : its inner and lower portions are always 

 dried up, and scabby as from some withering sick- 

 ness. Such, at least, is always the case with the 

 full-grown plant,- though, when very young, or when 

 springing anew from a shorn stump, it remains for some 

 time pleasingly green all over. 



To the uninitiated it may appear simple enough to pluck 

 up the Heather / but how soon will he be brought face to 

 face with the dismal fact that, for grass-growing purposes, 

 this superficial treatment is of no avail whatsoever ! The 

 peaty soil, product of untold generations of Heather, 

 spongy to a depth of many inches, matted with the 

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