n8 MORE POT-POURRI 



DECEMBER 



Lonely evenings and more papers Figs from France Hornbeams 

 and Weeping Hornbeams Wire netting round small fruit-trees 

 Damsons Roman Hyacinths and Paper-white Narcissus Effect of 

 coloured glass on plants Use of corrugated iron Lord Lyndoch 

 Cultivation of Mistletoe A list of plants Anniversary present- 

 giving Christmas decorations Acetylene gas The old learning 

 live alone Eeceipts. 



December 1st. I have been turning out more old 

 letters, and among other papers with other memories and 

 connected with other times I found this fragment of what 

 was evidently intended to be an autobiography of a long 

 life. As a sketch of a little boy's life nearly seventy years 

 ago, with its allusions to foreign lands and customs now 

 nearly extinct, I think it is not entirely devoid of interest. 

 I omit an account given of the writer's family, the story 

 of his father and mother, and his own birth in Switzerland : 



' My early youth was passed in many different places, 

 but I have not much recollection of them. One season 

 we had a house in Hereford Street, Park Lane a site now 

 occupied by Hereford Gardens. I remember cows being 

 milked for purchasers in Hyde Park, and Blacks playing 

 the cymbals in the bands of the Guards. 



' When very young we went to Scotland, where my 

 father, who was very devoted to every sort of sport, 

 enjoyed his life immensely. Those days were before the 

 railway period, and an Englishman in Scotland -was a 

 comparatively rare person. 



' Whilst I was in Edinburgh I went with my brother 



