44 A YEAR IN A LANCASHIRE GARDEN. 



Emerson quotes, that " A Fig-tree looking upon 

 a Fig-tree becometh fruitful," has not held good 

 in this case. Lancashire, of course, is not the 

 climate for Figs, but I should doubt whether Fig- 

 trees are anywhere so common in England as 

 they were 150 years ago, when Batty Langley of 

 Twickenham wrote. He recommends them to be 

 grown as dwarfs or standards as well as against a 

 wall, and says they "are either white, black, yellow, 

 grey, green, brown, purple, or violet- coloured , con- 

 sisting of sixteen different kinds," but he adds 

 that the white and the long purple do the best. 



The Pears against the wall have but little fruit, 

 but the standards are setting well, and the Apples 

 will not, I hope, have suffered from this spell of 

 cold. The new grass walk, of which I wrote on 

 January 5 as passing right through the garden, 

 is shaded by some Apple-trees, and it is pleasant 

 to see their flakes of rosy snow falling softly on 

 the fresh green beneath. Between these old Apple- 

 trees and the young standards I have planted* 

 there was room, which I am making ornamental 

 with cones of Scarlet Runners. We have some 

 five circles on each side of the walk, and shall 

 train up the bean tendrils by strings fastened to 

 a centre pole, so that in summer we shall have 



