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CHAPTER III 



A 



SPRING-FLOWERING BULBS 

 AND SHRUBS 



GRAND old cherry tree (it is well over a hundred 

 years old) loaded with its snowy cloud of exquisite blooms 

 and in the grass beyond and all around a glory of daffodils 

 — millions of them — covering the ground so thickly that 

 the grass is almost invisible. This is what I am looking 

 at now. There are only a few fleecy clouds in the blue 

 sky, and the sunshine is so warm that were it not for the 

 daffodils it would seem like a day in June rather than April. 

 This daffodil garden has been forty-two years in making, 

 and during all these years all flower-lovers have been 

 welcomed by the kindly, generous owners of ' Wiggie.' 

 The place still bears the quaint name that it bore in the 

 sixteenth century. In John Norden's map of Surrey, 

 made by order of Queen Elizabeth, Wiggie is one of the 

 few places marked in the * Reygate Hundred.' Something 

 of the peace and quiet of those days still haunts Wiggie. 

 Shortly before the war one of those employed here was a 

 man, Daniel Gumbrell by name, who had entered the 

 service of Mr. Trower's grandfather, in the reign of 

 William IV, as a child of nine, and had worked for the 

 family for 75 years. Four other men had been in their 

 service for over 50 years. Old Daniel (who had served 

 them for 75 years) by the time he had reached 90 years 

 of age had 120 descendants, and I shall not easily forget 

 Mr. Trower telling me of the Sunday afternoon when 



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