OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 



time to be improved into lawns, where hitherto Heath 

 and Whin held their sway. But the spaces lately freed 

 from underwoods, which we so fondly hoped would turn 

 of themselves into grassy glades and dells, provided us 

 with new Heraclean labours, 



Have I named Bracken ?~Bracken ! an everlasting problem 

 on such a piece of land as ours, which less than a 

 century back was undoubtedly part of the wild moorland 

 itself. Nothing, it seems, but thorough overturning will 

 really and finally rid the soil of the unconscionable Bracken 

 the ubiquitous, the imperishable, the exasperating Pteris 

 Aquilina ! 



This knowledge has been impressed on us by the experi- 

 ence of successive years. Our first inkling of it was 

 when, returning to the Villino after a few months 7 absence 

 and fondly anticipating to find our precious glades <which, 

 after the Great Clearance, had been generously sown 

 with grass) covered with a tender-green, thickly-piled 

 carpet, we were confronted with waving fields of lusty 

 Brake already breast high. 



In itself the sight was not displeasing/ the young verdure 

 was cool to the eye and did not greatly impede the view. But 

 what we wanted was Grass. Grass which, in course of 

 time and at their proper seasons, Crocus Vernus, Primrose, 

 Blue-bell and Daffodil, Foxglove, and Colchicum Autum- 

 nale would star and illumine with colour. 

 Now, where the Brake thrives, it takes unto itself the 

 whole bounty of the sun, and stifles all plant-life of lesser 

 height than itself. 

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