I. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Although much of the neighbourhood has 

 become semi-urban and any idea of rural 

 seclusion is destroyed, at least in summer, by 

 the crowds that find their way to it from 

 Manchester and other large towns, yet the 

 Cheshire village of Warburton in which this 

 garden is situated is a real country place still. 

 How long it will remain so is another thing. 

 One salt works has been set up at Heatley 

 about a mile away and we are now (1912) 

 promised another, while there is every pros- 

 pect of land being let for works in Warburton 

 itself. Who knows, in a few years perhaps 

 the whole place may be reduced to the desola- 

 tion of another Widnes. Then, when it has 

 become a rare thing to find even a blade of 

 grass on the dreary black waste or to see any 

 bird but a grimy sparrow, a record of what 

 was once here may be strange reading. 



The garden itself about which I write is 

 quite on the northern boundary of Cheshire, 

 in old days divided from Lancashire by the 

 Mersey only. The soil is light and sandy, 

 not far from the rock in places and in places 

 with water at a very little depth below the 

 surface. It is well suited to hollies and 

 rhododendrons, both of which grow abund- 

 antly and luxuriantly, as also do yews. 



