OCTOBER 49 



and double-pink. In the same village there was for 

 many years a large clump of double-pink close under 

 a cottage wall with a south-east aspect. That also 

 flowered abundantly, so for double-pink at any rate shade 

 is not essential, though I remember that the late James 

 Backhouse told me many years ago that the Hepaticas 

 did best and flowered earliest with a north aspect, as then 

 they went to sleep sooner in the autumn. The wild ones 

 in Swiss and French woods are always where they would 

 be shaded in summer, and grow with the Primroses. I 

 was also unsuccessful with Hepaticas for many years as 

 long as I grew them on the flat, but when I at last tried 

 them on the shady side of the rockery between the stones 

 the blue ones have done well, the plants increasing in 

 size year by year and flowering abundantly.' I found by 

 my letters that a good many people thought when I did 

 not mention some plants that I either had not got them, or 

 did not care for them, or did not know them. The last 

 was sometimes the case, but I have of course a great many 

 things in the garden, grown in the usual way and doing 

 well, which I did not mention. 



October 15th. I suppose there are still some few 

 people who plant trees for their children or grandchildren, 

 although it is rather the fashion to expect gardens and 

 woods to be made in a day, and always to be planting 

 quick-growing things, Scotch Firs being discarded and the 

 ugly-growing Pinus austriaca planted in its stead, etc. One 

 of the loveliest things I know in this neighbourhood is a 

 road running through a Beech-tree copse, planted thickly 

 but varying in depth on each side of the road, The trees 

 when they were young were evidently cut down, as many 

 of them have two or three stems. At all times of the 

 year the drive up this chalk slope is perfectly enchanting 

 whether in the autumn, when the stems are gray and 

 green against the leaf -strewn ground, rich and golden in 



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