48 TREES AND SHRUBS 



year is not more than a week or two old, yet already 

 the tasselled catkins are swinging in the lightest 

 rustle of the sighing wind, and begin to lift up their 

 tiers of small woolly cowls to set free the yellow 

 pollen-dust. And so we may go on our way, and, 

 at every turn, some rugged Yew, or clump of 

 red-stemmed Scotch Fir, or tapering Spruce with 

 hanging russet cones, will stay our steps, and if we 

 look and listen, they will tell us in their own way 

 the story of their perfect fitness for our homely 

 English landscape. Or, if we chance to be in one 

 of the chalky districts of the South Downs, we may 

 come upon Box, the ever young, as it was called of 

 yore, or Juniper, in its bloom of silver grey, as 

 precious as any, to add to the tale of our best native 

 evergreens. 



Now it is to a wise choice of evergreens and to 

 their rightful placing that we must look for the 

 basis of our content in the winter garden. The 

 insight of our forefathers foresaw the solid comfort 

 of the rampart of Yew which was fostered of old 

 in many a manor-house garden. It caused them 

 to fence about their dwellings on north and east 

 with a belt of sturdy timber trees, to meet and ward 

 off in their pliant strength the roughest winter gales. 

 It planned the sheltered nut-walk and the pleached 

 alley and the cosy settle, carved out of the thick 

 Box bushes, on the grassy verge of the bowling- 

 green. They took of the materials at hand, and 

 many have since their day blessed the fore- 

 sight which planted, not only for themselves, but 



