148 Gleanings in Old Garden Literature. 



business a not unlikely thing, as the king 

 evidently had its success so much at heart. 

 It was rather an unfortunate scheme, for the 

 black variety grows very slowly, and its leaves 

 are not so favourable for the purpose as those 

 of other kinds ; yet at the same time it 

 was not a matter of option, since no other 

 sort would have lived in England. 



Besides the request addressed to the lieu- 

 tenants of counties, a strenuous effort was 

 made in the metropolis itself, or rather in 

 what was at that time a suburb, namely, in 

 the immediate vicinity of St. James's Palace 

 and adjacent to the present Buckingham 

 Palace, where some ground was appropriated 

 to a mulberry plantation, with the necessary 

 houses and appliances for the rearing of the 

 silkworms and the manufacture of the fabric. 



But the experiment failed ; royal commands 

 will not always prevail ; and the only advan- 

 tage which the country derived from it was 

 that very few districts within a moderate 

 distance of London were unprovided with 

 specimens of the Virginian Forester. In 

 the immediate neighbourhood of the metro- 



