Garden Furnishings 393 



great skepes with an indescribably free and noble 

 gesture. He was a classic, a relic of Homer's age, 

 no longer a farmer, but a husbandman. Bees and 

 honey were of much value in ancient days. Honey 

 was the chief ingredient in many wholesome and 

 pleasing drinks — mead, metheglin, bragget (or bra- 

 ket), morat, erboule — all very delightful in their 

 ingredients, redolent of meadows and hedge-rows ; 

 thus Cowslip mead was made of Cowslip " pips," 

 honey, Lemon juice, and " a handful of Sweet- 

 brier." " Athol porridge," demure of name, was as 

 potent as pleasing — potent as good honey, good 

 cream, and good whiskey could make it. 



Rows of typical Southern beehives are shown in 

 the two succeeding illustrations. From their home 

 by the side of a White Rose and under an old 

 Sweet Apple tree these Waterford bees did not wish 

 to swarm out in a hurry to find a new home. These 

 beehives are not very ancient in shape, but when 

 I see a row of them set thus under the trees, 

 or in a hive-shelter, they seem to tell of olden 

 days. The very bees flying in an out seem steady- 

 going, respectable old fellows. Such hives have a 

 cosy look, with rows of Hollyhocks behind them, 

 and hundreds of spires of Larkspur for these old 

 bees to bury their heads in. 



The sadly picturesque old superstition of "telling 

 the bees" of a death in a family and hanging a bit 

 of black cloth on the hives as a mourning-weed still 

 is observed in some country communities. Whit- 

 tier's poem on the subject is wonderfully " countri- 

 fied " in atmosphere, using the word chore-girl, so 



