BARSKIMMING 



the first principles of horticulture selection and 

 rejection. 



I cannot leave Barskimming without mention- 

 ing one picturesque, if homely, feature in its garden. 

 Every amateur and professional gardener must have 

 realised the difficulty of disposing of rubbish. In 

 the outskirts of nearly every pleasure-ground there 

 exists a dire accumulation, more or less success- 

 fully concealed, of rotting cabbage stalks, flower 

 stems, decayed fruit, old pease-sticks, etc., mounting 

 higher year lay year, abode of rats, and source of 

 evil odours. Scottish gardeners speak of this as 

 " the coup " ; I know not what the southron 

 synonym may be. Well, at Barskimming "the coup" 

 is on a heroic scale. All the waste products, which 

 will not serve for leaf-mould, are shot over a sheer 

 precipice on the south side of the garden, and fall 

 clear nearly 100 feet into the river Ayr, to be swept 

 away by the first spate. 



And spates are neither niggardly nor infrequent 

 in Western Scotland. 



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