198 September Sunshine 



pageantry of a lawn and its trees are as well seen as 

 in September. Earlier in the summer the shadows 

 scarcely begin to stream across the grass until the 

 time when most of us are indoors ; nor have these 

 stately garden skiagraphs the same velvety depth 

 and darkness in the clear, high light of a mid- 

 summer evening as they gain from September's 

 tempered suns. The increased range of the shadows 

 helps the longer and cooler nights to keep the grass 

 and flowers in the September garden vigorous and 

 green in spite of the brightest sun by day. In July 

 a succession of four or five cloudless days entails, 

 at least on light, gravelly soils, the flagging of 

 much vegetation and the fading and thinning 

 of the garden turf. It is only now that the 

 longer hours of darkness and the more copious 

 nocturnal dews make the enjoyment, day after 

 day, of perfect sunshine compatible with the 

 lawn's full greenness and the blossoming of the 

 most delicate or thirstiest flowers. They have 

 now that large, firm beauty which shows that 

 they have the full supply of moisture which 

 they need. 



Where all the hedges and shrubberies of the 

 garden were busy, a few months back, with the 

 life of the nestling and new-fledged birds, now the 

 silence is broken by comparatively few signs of 

 life. The tide of bird-life has ebbed away from the 

 garden ; this year's nests are already old and 

 battered, and, in spite of the rankness of the 

 autumn vegetation, we see many of them thrust 

 into conspicuousness by changes in the leafy screen, 



