222 A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN. 



you get into the county, keep going on till you see 

 some trees those trees are mine." And the late 

 Bishop of Exeter, who had a habit of speaking as 

 he thought and quoting as he spoke, used to remark 

 to his neighbours, " Your shrubs are trees, but your 

 trees are scrubs." You will find glorious conifers 

 fifty feet in height, but you will not find timber 

 trees. And now, alas ! those gracious gifts by which 

 the generous earth more than repaid the sterility 

 of her surface by the abundance of her precious 

 ores within, have lost their power to compensate ; and 

 when I asked why there was silence and desolation 

 around the mines, and only here and there a chimney 

 smoked, the answer which I received was this, 

 " They cannot compete with foreign imports." 



Looking down upon the estuary, from which the 

 Fal flows into the sea, commanding lovely views of 

 both, of the former to the left, and of the latter as 

 you look to the right beyond Falmouth, " a havyn 

 very notable and famose," as Leland writes, " and in 

 a manner the most principale of al Britayne," the 

 garden at Porthgwidden, with its pleasant paths, 

 conducting you from the fair home above to the 

 banks and bathing-place below, amid rare trees, and 

 shrubs, and flowers, gracefully arranged and tended 

 with skilful care, is one of the most charming of 

 our cultured grounds, reminding us of Spencer's 

 words 



" It was a chosen plot of fertile land, 



Amid wild waves set like a little nest, 

 As if it had by Nature's cunning hand 



Been choicely picked out from all the rest." 



