JANUARY 169 



to suit other things. With the Aconites, our first out- 

 door friends, come a few Snowdrops. They have never 

 been planted here in any quantity, and have a tendency 

 to dimmish rather than increase : perhaps mice are 

 especially fond of them. I am more than ever determined 

 to plant a large quantity next year; enough, if possible, for 

 me and the mice too. This little Snowdrop poem has 

 such an echo of ' The Baby-seed Song ' a great favourite 

 in my other book that I copy it out of a recent ' Pall 

 Mall Gazette ' : 



SNOWDROP-TIME 



. ' It's rather dark in the earth to-day,' 



Said one little bulb to his brother ; 

 ' But I thought that I felt a sunbeam ray 

 We must strive and grow till we find the way ! ' 



And they nestled close to each other. 

 Then they struggled and toiled by day and by night 

 Till two little Snowdrops, in green and white, 

 Eose out of the darkness and into the light, 



And softly kissed one another. 



In the greenhouse have now been put the first pots of 

 the lovely double Prunus with its delicate whiteness of 

 driven snow ; no plant forces better. I said this, or some- 

 thing like it, before. Never mind, with some plants it is 

 worth while to repeat myself. In the country I do not 

 now care to grow Indiarubber plants or Aspidistras, except 

 to give away. They only remind me of towns, and take a 

 good deal of room. 



I have in the greenhouse several pots of a white 

 Oxalis I do not know its distinguishing name with a 

 long growth of its lovely fresh green leaves, which can be 

 picked and mixed with delicate greenhouse flowers, as 

 they last well in water. It has a white flower in spring, 

 and the whole plant is very like an improved version of 

 our Wood Sorrel, Oxalis acetosella. The more I look at 

 my beautiful old * Jacquin ' Oxalis book, the more I feel 



