300 MORE POT-POURRI 



MAY 



The 'French Sugar Pea' The ' Westminster Gazette' on Tulips 

 The legend of the Crown Imperial Article on ' Sacred Trees and 

 Flowers' Peeling of Poppies Cooking receipts Books on 

 Florence Mr. Gladstone on travelling Journey to Italy 

 Arrival at Arcetri. 



May 1st. Gorse thoroughly peeled and wedged (see first 

 volume) lasts for weeks in water, and the warmth of the 

 room makes the flower come out so well it is almost a 

 different-looking plant. 



In these light soils all the fruit-trees over-flower them- 

 selves so much, like pot-bound plants, that no one need 

 scruple to pick branches of blossom to put in water in 

 the house. The trees can never carry even the fruit that 

 sets. 



The evergreens are beginning their spring shoots. I 

 think it must have been at about this time of year, when 

 the young leaves on the Holly have no spines, that 

 Southey wrote : 



All vain asperities, clay by day, would wear away, 

 Till the smooth temper of my age should be 

 Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree. 



A book published in 1857, called ' Curiosities of 

 Natural History,' by Francis T. Buckland, is very in- 

 terestingly written, and will be found full of information 

 on all sorts of subjects from the anatomy of the water- 

 rat to Virgil's description of the death of Laocoon. 



At this time of year, when the frame double Violets 



