THE POTATO BLOSSOM. 145 



to grow rapidly, and everywhere present a strong and' healthy 

 appearance, " a guarantee," as newspaper editors say, " of their 

 good faith " and honest intentions in the direction of a bounteous 

 yield when cometh the season of ingathering. Potatoes are now in 

 full flower ; and a very pretty sight, if you deign to look at it with 

 an unprejudiced eye, is a potato field in blossom at this season. If 

 the incomparable esculent were not cultivated for its utility and 

 value as an article of food, it would still deserve a place in our 

 gardens for its elegance and beauty simply as a flower. Nothing 

 but its commonness causes its beauty as a flowering plant to be so 

 constantly overlooked. We are in the midst of our hay season, and 

 we are only anxious about good weather for securing it in tolerable 

 order. Eight consecutive days of dry, breezy weather would be of 

 incalculable value to us at this moment. Anything will grow, and 

 grow luxuriantly, on the West Coast : our difficulties only begin 

 with the season of ripening and after preservation. If there be any 

 truth in the old Scottish saying, that " a year of nuts will also be a 

 year of corn," then may the grain-growers of the West Highlands 

 at least already congratulate themselves, for we have seldom seen 

 the hazel boughs so laden with nut clusters ; and a prettier sight 

 than a hazel wood so laden, either now or when decked in its 

 autumnal robes, it would be difficult to conceive. It is, besides, a 

 fragrant, cleanly wood, through which you can at any time dash 

 fearlessly and at will, all the better of your contact with the leaves, 

 branches, and nut clusters, when you have reached the open beyond. 

 There is not a leaf in the woods so thoroughly clean, so fragrant 

 when you have crushed it in your hand, so soft and pleasant to the 

 touch in its every stage, as the leaf fresh plucked from the hazel bough. 

 And apropos of hazel nuts, a gentlemen from the south of Eng- 

 land, at present resident in our neighbourhood, told us something 

 the other day that we did not know before. " In our part of Eng- 

 land," observed our friend, " the hazel is common, and grows to a 



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