ioo JUNE 



are rejoicing in it in terribly selfish fashion, for 

 are there not many acres of grass still lying un- 

 carried and almost as many left uncut ? I pointed 

 out to Sterculus this morning that our joy should 

 be chastened by this remembrance, but he was 

 quite unmoved and unsympathising. " We cain't 

 eat hay," he says, as he hugs himself in his own 

 peculiar way while surveying his fat pea-pods and 

 his newly planted lettuces. He is the more pleased 

 because he prophesied this welcome change ; but 

 Sterculus's habit of prophecy leaves room for so 

 much later hedging that we do not often pay great 

 attention to it. " I don't say 'twill rain to-day, and 

 I don't say 'twill rain to-morrow ; what I say is, 

 'twill rain," is his usual formula, and even we lesser 

 mortals feel that we could sometimes get as near 

 prophecy by a happy accident. 



I have adopted some of the suggestions con- 

 tained in Mr. William Robinson's English Flower 

 Garden with very happy results those, I mean, 

 which refer to the growing of successional groups 

 of flowers in the borders. A patch of ground, 

 for instance, which in early summer is gay with 

 blue forget-me-not is later in the year a mass 

 of tritonia. The nodding star of Bethlehem 

 gives place at this time to the white creeping- 

 evening primrose, which blooms for the rest of 

 the summer. Spanish irises come up and flower 

 in a glaucous-coloured carpet of zauschneria cali- 

 fornica, which is later than most things in coming 

 into blossom. Madonna lilies are planted with 

 pyrethrums or with oriental poppies, and succeed 

 them with only a few days' interval between. I 



