140 MORE POT-POURRI 



Madame Host6 ; Marie Van Houtte ; Perles des Jardins. 

 Polyantha : C6cile Brunner ; Perle d'Or.' 



I have a near neighbour who is a most successful 

 Eose grower. Walking through his beautifully kept beds 

 the other day, I noted that the centre parts of the plant, 

 both in standards and dwarfs, had some bracken twisted 

 into them. This is a great protection against the coming 

 frosts. For anyone who cares about the choicer Ferns 

 it is a protection to them, too, to have their own leaves 

 twisted round them in the shape of a knob of hair on a 

 woman's head, firmly tucking in the ends so that the 

 winds of March may not untwist them. 



December 21st. The perennial and ever-recurrent 

 aspect of the London streets at this time of year always 

 reminds me of the old happy Christmas holidays and of 

 long walks with three young gentlemen lately returned 

 home, who then considered it my chief defect that I had 

 not three arms. The mental attitude which I tried to 

 instil into them was to enjoy looking in at the shop- 

 windows rather than to admire or, above all, wish to 

 possess the extraordinary amount of rubbish displayed 

 inside, which, though it looked well enough arranged in 

 redundant heaps, would, I thought, seem to them mere 

 money wasted in poor useless stuff if they brought it 

 home. I dare say I am prejudiced in these matters, having 

 always had a very great dislike to wholesale present- 

 giving at fixed anniversaries, whether birthdays, Christmas, 

 or New Year. 



I think that while children are quite small say, up to 

 the age of ten or twelve we might leave the matter as it 

 stands at present, as the said redundant heap on the 

 nursery floor may give a peculiar pleasure of its own. But 

 this is quite different from an obligatory present-giving to 

 all sorts of people : servants and dependents, grown-up 

 children, fathers, mothers, and old grannies. We all 

 know houses where this kind of thing is much practised, 



