THE NORTH SWEDISH PROVINCES 157 



' Baron Grundell, the governor of the province, a 

 pattern of mildness, received me kindly, showed me 

 several curiosities, and gave me much interesting in- 

 formation. The birds I saw here were the crossbill 

 (which cleverly fed on the cones of the spruce fir), 

 yellowhammers, swallows, snow-buntings and ortolans. 



* Ruffs and reeves had been in plenty this year. 

 In the cornfields lay hundreds of gulls (Larus canus) of 

 sky-blue colour. 



* In the garden the governor ' [the pattern of mildness] 

 ' showed me orach, salad, and red cabbage, 1 which last 

 thrives very well, though the white cabbage will not come 

 to perfection here ; also garden and winter cresses, scurvy- 

 grass, camomile, radishes, goosetongue (Achillea ptar- 

 mica), rose-campion, wild-rose, lovage, spinach, onions, 

 leeks, chives, cucumbers, columbines, carnations, sweet- 

 william, gooseberries, currants, the barberry, elder, 

 guelder-rose, and lilac. Potatoes here are not larger than 

 poppy-heads ; tobacco, managed with the greatest care, 

 and when the season is remarkably favourable, some- 

 times perfects seed. Dwarf French beans thrive pretty 

 well, but the climbing kinds never succeed. Broad 

 beans come to perfection ; but peas, though they form 

 pods, never ripen. Roses, apples, pears, and plums 

 hardly grow at all, though cultivated with the greatest 

 attention. Cherries, apples, pears, and plums always fail. 2 



1 If he had a good cook for these herbs, this is, perhaps, the 

 origin of his designation. 



1 In UmeS Du Chaillu saw a garden filled with flowers, straw- 



