OCTOBER 173 



mossgrown apple-trees broke so tenderly the border- 

 lines, casting chequered shade across the paths : there 

 were such fascinating nooks within the ample space, 

 with here a choice flowering shrub and there a breadth 

 of bell-flower or scarlet lychnis, that the deftest land- 

 scape gardener could not have heightened the restful 

 beauty of the scene. For me, the special glory of the 

 place was the Madonna lilies. They had spread into 

 broad mats, with sheaves of five-foot stems, their leaves 

 unstained by the foul fungus that so often wrecks our 

 hopes, and the crowded flower-trusses gleamed like 

 friendly ghosts in that summer gloaming. 



Before I returned to that place, it had changed 

 hands. A new laird and a new gardener had conspired 

 to polish up the grounds; money had been lavishly 

 spent ; gone were most of the old apple-trees, those 

 which remained had been scraped free from moss and 

 lichen, and scientifically pruned; the borders were 

 rilled with spoil from distant lands, all scrupulously 

 labelled (as was right enough). But the lilies had been 

 broken up into little clumps set at regular intervals 

 and wilting hopelessly with Botrytis. It will need two 

 generations of men to restore the tranquil beauty of 

 that old pleasaunce. 



More than fifty years ago 1 learned my first lesson 

 in the felicitous disposal of herbaceous plants, in the 

 grounds of that Oxford college so paradoxically named 

 New (it was founded by William of Wykeham in 1380 !). 

 I have never been there since ; but a similar impression 

 is received every time I spend an hour among the 

 borders of St. John's College, so skilfully and lovingly 



