LITERARY WORK, ETC. 203 



climate, I spent some weeks in exploring the country between 

 Godalming and Portsmouth, and then westward to Bourne- 

 mouth and Poole. I had let my house from Lady Day, and 

 had moved temporarily into another, and therefore wished to 

 decide quickly. We were directed by some friends to Park- 

 stone as a very pretty and sheltered place, and here we found 

 a small house to be let which suited us tolerably well, with the 

 option of purchase at a moderate price. The place attracted 

 us because we saw abundance of great bushes of the ever- 

 green purple veronicas, which must have been a dozen or 

 twenty years old, and also large specimens of eucalyptus ; 

 while we were told that there had been no skating there for 

 twenty years. We accordingly took the house, and purchased 

 it in the following year ; and by adding later a new kitchen 

 and bedroom, and enlarging the drawing-room, converted it 

 from a cramped, though very pretty cottage, into a convenient, 

 though still small house. The garden on the south side was 

 in a hollow on the level of the basement, while on the north 

 it was from ten to thirty feet higher, there being on the east 

 a high bank, with oak trees and pines, producing a very pretty 

 effect. This bank, as well as the lower part of the garden, 

 was peat or peaty sand, and as I knew this was good for rho- 

 dodendrons and heaths, I was much pleased to be able to grow 

 these plants. I did not then know, however, that this peaty 

 soil was quite unsuited to a great many other plants, and only 

 learnt this by the long experience which every gardener has to 

 go through. 



During the eight years I had lived at Godalming, I had 

 greatly enjoyed my garden, and had grown, more or less suc- 

 cessfully, an immense number of hardy and half-hardy plants 

 in about half an acre of ground. The soil was of the lower 

 green sand formation, with a thin layer of leaf-mould, the 

 whole district having been originally woodland and copse. On 

 the whole this soil was the best for gardening purposes I 

 have ever had, being easy to work, and well suited to a great 

 variety of herbaceous plants and shrubs, and especially to 

 bulbs. Here, without any special trouble, I was able to grow 

 on a raised bank Iris susiana and /. durica for several years 



