DECEMBER 129 



deep shade can be done over a seat, and would not take 

 very long to grow into a natural arbour. A Weeping 

 Hornbeam which, I suppose, must be a modern gardening 

 invention, as it is not mentioned in London's very com- 

 prehensive ' Arboretum et Fruticetum ' is also a splendid 

 tree for a sunny lawn ; and in the female plant the long, 

 loose, pendulous catkins are very attractive. The seeds 

 ripen in October, and the bunches or cones which 

 contain them should be gathered by hand when the 

 nuts are ready to drop out. The nuts separate easily 

 from the envelope, and if sown at once will come up the 

 following spring. All this sounds rather slow, for in these 

 days people buy all they want and never wait. Messrs. 

 Veitch sell both kinds of Hornbeams, and even tall, well- 

 grown plants of the Weeping kind are not expensive. 



' Bosquets, or groves, are so called from bouquet, a 

 nosegay ; and I believe gardeners never meant any- 

 thing else by giving this term to this compartment, 

 which is a sort of green knot, formed by branches and 

 leaves of trees that compose it placed in rows opposite 

 each other.' The author of ' The Eetired Gardener ' then 

 adds : ' I have named a great many compartments in 

 which Hornbeam is made use of ; yet methinks none of 

 them look so beautiful and magnificent as a gallery with 

 arches.' 



December 13th. We have just been digging up and 

 preparing a good-sized oblong piece of ground in the best 

 and sunniest part of the kitchen garden, and moving into 

 it gooseberries and currants red, white, and black. 

 Bound this I am going to place, after considerable delibera- 

 tion and doubt, a high fine-wire fencing with an open- 

 ing on one side instead of a gate which reduces the 

 expense and the opening can be covered when necessary 

 with a net. The reason for not wiring over the top, 

 besides the expense, is that it causes a rather injurious 



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