256 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



delicate colour and texture, so making one of the hand- 

 somest foliage shrubs I know. 



It would be easy to make the list much larger, but I 

 have in my mind a garden of a small extent, and for such 

 the trees I have named would be almost sufficient. I 

 do not mention such beautiful trees as thorns of many 

 kinds, hollies, or service trees, because I should rather 

 rank them as tall shrubs than as trees. But before I 

 close the list I must mention two great favourites, 

 which should be on every lawn, the medlar and the 

 mulberry. I never saw a medlar that was not of a 

 beautiful shape, and it makes a more natural tent or 

 arbour than any other tree; the flower is handsome, 

 and the fruit very acceptable to those who like it. Of 

 the mulberry-tree we cannot say too much. The flowers 

 are inconspicuous, but curious and well worth study- 

 ing, and the fruit is delicious when we have a hot sum- 

 mer, and the tree is beautiful in shape and colour. An 

 old mulberry-tree is an ornament to a lawn that any 

 owner may be proud of, and it is so easily grown that 

 large limbs cut off and stuck into the ground will grow. 

 Among old gardeners it bore a very high character. 

 Pliny thought that 



' It seemeth to have some sense and understanding, as if it 

 were a living and sensible creature, for of all civile and 

 domesticall trees it is the last that doth bud, and never before 



