APRIL 285 



as one says 'Do you take sugar or cream ? ' at teatime, for 

 hardly anyone now does stay at home. Cactuses have a 

 way of flowering when they choose. They will not wait for 

 you if you are away, and their blooms only last a short 

 time ; but when they do condescend to flower, the beauty 

 of them is exquisite far more rare and lovely than any 

 Orchid that I know. I have lately been able to procure a 

 book for which I have waited a long time, ' Bliihende 

 Cacteen,' by Dr. Pfeiffer and F. B. Otto. It was published 

 in Cassel (Germany) in 1843, and is a monograph on 

 Cactuses, in two volumes bound in one. The prints are 

 very well drawn, and the flowers hand-coloured. The 

 text, unfortunately perhaps, is written only in German 

 and French. 



For all who wish to increase their Phloxes, Michael- 

 mas Daisies, and hardy Chrysanthemums, it is quite 

 possible in this month or early in May not only to divide 

 them, as I said before, but to take off the shoots and stick 

 them in the ground. This gives you the plants much 

 less tall than if allowed to grow on the original root. 

 Many of the herbaceous things will root in this way 

 in spring. Cuttings of the white Everlasting Pea cer- 

 tainly do. 



Cerasus pseudo-cerasus, as sold by Messrs. Veitch & 

 Co., is very like Cerasus watereri in Mr. Robinson's book. 

 The whole family, and especially this one from Mr. 

 Veitch, seem to me as well worth growing as anything I 

 know among spring-flowering shrubs. 



April QQth. We have walked this evening down to 

 the old mill by the river Mole. I have, not unnaturally, 

 a great affection for a watermill, as I passed all my child- 

 hood so close to its thumping mysteries, and my bedroom 

 window as a girl was just above the rushing mill-tail, 

 where the brown trout lay under the Laurels. My old 

 mill is all modernised and altered now, while here the 



