THE LATEST FLOWERS. 3 



and the orchard ; it is to these that I invite you. 

 Exclusive of meadow-land there are only some 

 four acres, but four acres are enough for many 

 gardening purposes, and for very great enjoyment. 

 These are certainly what the American poet 

 Bryant calls " the melancholy days, the saddest 

 in the year." The late autumn flowers are over ; 

 the early spring ones are still buried under the 

 soil. I could only find this morning a single 

 blighted monthly Rose, a Wallflower or two, an 

 uneasy-looking Polyanthus, and some yellow Jas- 

 mine against the house and that was all. Two 

 days of early frost had killed the rest. Oddly 

 enough, however, a small purple flower caught 

 my eye on the mixed border ; it was a Virginian 

 Stock, but what it was doing at this unwonted 

 season who can say ? Then, of course, the Arbutus 

 is still in bloom, as it has been for the last two 

 months, and very beautiful it is. There is a large 

 bush of it just as you enter the walled garden, 

 and, though the pink clusters of blossom are now 

 past their best, they are more welcome than ever 

 in the present dearth of flowers. Can any one 

 tell me why my Arbutus does not fruit ? It has 

 only borne one single berry in the last four years ; 

 and yet the Arbutus fruits abundantly in other 



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