JANUARY 5 



Midlothian, which are known to have been planted 

 between 1670 and 1680. They form magnificent 

 ramparts, from 30 to 40 feet high, tapering upward 

 from a basal diameter of 20 feet and extending to a 

 total length of 375 yards. They testify by their 

 luxuriance at an age of 250 years to the excellence of 

 their treatment by Mr. John Bruce, Colonel Trotter's 

 gardener, who clips them regularly about the end of 

 March, thereby ensuring a close young growth to 

 mature before winter. 



Faithful old John Parkinson, who dedicated his 

 delectable Paradisus to Queen Henrietta Maria in 

 1629, passes scathing comment upon Pliny for his 

 servile repetition of idle myths circulated by earlier 

 writers : 



' With the flowers of the holly, saith Pliny from Pytha- 

 goras, water is made ice ; and againe, a staffe of the tree 

 throwne at any beast, although it fall short by his defect 

 that threw it, will flye to him, as he lyeth still, by the speciall 

 property of the tree. This I relate that you may understand 

 the fond and vain conceit of those times, which I would to 

 God we were not in these dayes tainted withal.' 



It would almost seem as if Pythagoras had some 

 inkling of, perhaps acquaintance with, the use of the 

 boomerang. 



In singular contrast with the austerity of the season 

 are the blossoms of the Algerian iris, most delicately 

 tinted and finely formed of all the flowers of midwinter. 

 It is one of the infelicitous results of the rule which 

 binds botanists to use in classification the generic and 

 specific name earliest bestowed upon any plant with- 



