MAY 67 



reason I hope to see flowers and fruit on the fine 

 Asparagus verticillatus (already a beautiful green pillar 

 quite fifteen feet high), on the Japanese Tchi-Tchi 

 (Diospyros costatus), on the Christ's thorn, on the 

 magnolias, and even perhaps on the Smilax, on the 

 Nandina, and the Periploca Grceca. I hope it may 

 also ripen the golden pods of the Japanese Kohlreuteria, 

 and the long pods, like French beans, of the Catalpa, 

 both of which I had in the Jubilee year, but never 

 before or since ; and it surely must ripen the wood of 

 our shrubs and fruit-trees, which will help them to 

 withstand a hard winter, if it should be our ill-luck 

 to add another hard winter to the three already past. 

 If the long drought of March, April, and May brings 

 us these results, we may not altogether regret it; 

 and such results would go far to compensate for the 

 trouble and anxieties which marred the pleasures of 

 those eleven weeks of bright sunshine, and will also 

 make some very memorable additions to my records 

 of ' A Gloucestershire Garden.' 



