COTTAGE GARDENS 161 



"Her Cottage possessed great and rare treasures, 

 in an arched porch of beautiful clipped Yew, and 

 a hedge of mixed Yew and Box, both planted by 

 her husband, the village sexton. They were much 

 prouder of the Yew hedge and porch than of any of 

 the flowers which grew in the small Garden, for 

 Yew recalled happy memories to them both ; the 

 Garden of her old home had been full of such 

 hedges, and the first words of her 'courting' had 

 been spoken, she told us, beneath the arch of 

 a Yew porch, and the tree had been beloved by 

 them both ever since. The first green thing planted 

 beside their new home, it became part of their lives, 

 for they had tended and watched its growth for 

 years. She has gone to rest now ; and no one was 

 surprised when the old man planted a Yew tree 

 on her grave and clipped it into the shape of a 

 cross." 



To define a Cottage Garden is difficult, especially 

 now that the present-day craze for spending week- 

 ends in the country has resulted in many an old 

 Cottage and Garden passing out of the villagers' 

 hands into the possession of a very different class, 

 to be adapted, changed, and added to by their new 

 owners ; the one thing remaining unchanged being 

 their name. There may be little in a name "a 

 Rose by any other name " may smell as sweet, but 

 it takes more than the name to make a Cottage 

 Garden. Some ingenious person defined a Cottage 



