FRUIT-GROWING 291 



of beautifully variegated milk-thistle are all notable 

 additions to one's rock-garden. We yet remember 

 with what pleasure we, more than forty years ago, 

 lighted on a fine milk-thistle on a rubbish-heap, at 

 Harrow, and bore it off in triumph to our domain, 

 where it flourished exceedingly, to our great con- 

 tentment. Our prototype in the poem appears to 

 have been equally successful, the vigorous growth 

 of his plants being an added reproach to him in the 

 eyes of his critic. 



Reference to our two next Plates, XXXIX. and 

 LX., reminds us that fruit, no less than blossom, has 

 an interest, and in these two cases at least this 

 interest is purely an aesthetic one. When our trails 

 of wild strawberries, or noble shoots of blackberries, 

 in due course become fruit-laden, one is not averse 

 to combine appreciation of form and colour with 

 appreciation of taste, but assuredly one's interest in 

 these clusters of crabs is purely on the former ground, 

 for no one, except an omnivorous schoolboy, would 

 venture beyond a preliminary nibble at fruit so 

 charming-looking yet so acrid and austere to the 

 taste. In like manner one rests entirely content 

 with admiring the orange clustering fruits of the 

 sea-buckthorn without any desire to sample them. 



The wild apple Pyrus Malus may not uncom- 

 monly be found in our woods, and when we see it 

 in May a mass of pink and white blossom, few 

 plants surpass it in beauty. It is the parent of 



