PRECOCIOUS KEW 



MAN will never be cured of his admiration for pre- 

 cocity. It seldom means stable and ultimate success, 

 it is the opposite of richness and ripeness ; but, by its 

 rareness and unexpectedness, the agony of a pale 

 midwinter flower seems to us more precious than the 

 million heads of the harvest. But afterwards come 

 the very early flowers in their true season, and then 

 our love is more sanely concentrated on the few 

 flowers of March with a fervour for each species that is 

 not possible when it is divided amongst the myriad 

 blossoms of May. We watch the frequently halted 

 unfolding of the first crocus with far more intentness 

 than we expend on the first white lily ; keep an 

 annual record of the first celandine, though none of 

 the first butterfly orchis ; write poems to the daring 

 daffodil, but none to the dawdling dahlia. We are 

 never quite truly certain that summer is coming again, 

 and must go out again and again to see whether the 

 blackthorn will blossom or no this year ; and when 

 April and May have surprised us by coming up to 

 expectation, we take June and July pretty much for 

 granted. 



For those who cannot go several degrees south to 

 see spring coming in, Kew is an easy and a sure place 

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