INTRODUCTORY 3 



remain to tell something of the wide and 

 grateful shade they once afforded to our 

 " rude forefathers " as on summer Sundays 

 they waited for service to begin, just as I 

 remember the last generation gathered and 

 gossipped under younger yews when this was 

 the Parish Church. This yew is the " thou- 

 sand-year-old tree " of the clerk's tale to 

 visitors, and if one thinks how many years of 

 slow growth it must have taken to form a 

 trunk of that thickness, say 18 feet in circum- 

 ference, and how many more for it to have 

 decayed away to its present condition, it does 

 indeed carry us back to an early date in 

 English history when the little green shoot 

 that sprang from the crimson-coated seed 

 first saw the light. 



One great drawback from a gardener's 

 point of view is the prevalence of strong, 

 cold, N.-W. winds in spring. The winters 

 are not so severe as they often are further 

 south, but the late spring frosts are some- 

 times disastrous. We have had potatoes cut 

 down by frost as late as June 2ist, but the 

 worst spring frost I have known was in May, 

 1894, just about the time that Queen Victoria 

 came to Manchester to open the Ship Canal. 

 On three consecutive nights, May 19, 20 and 

 21, there was frost, and its intensity seemed 

 to increase each night. Not only were 

 potatoes cut, but garden peas and many 

 hardy herbaceous plants and even common 



