TREES ABOUT TOWN. 203 



Ehododendrons it is unkind to attack, for in tliem- 

 selves they afford a rich flower. It is not the rhodo- 

 dendron, but the abuse of it, which must be protested 

 against. Whether the soil suits or not — and, for the 

 most part, it does not suit — rhododendrons are thrust 

 in everywhere. Just walk in amongst them — behind 

 the show — and look at the spindly, crooked sterns^ 

 straggling how they may, and then look at the earth 

 under them, where not a weed even will grow. The 

 rhododendron is admirable in its place, but it is often 

 overdone and a failure, and has no right to exclude 

 those shrubs that are fitter. Most of the foreign 

 shrubs about these semi-country seats look exactly 

 like the stiff and painted little wooden trees that are 

 sold for children's toys, and, like the toys, are the 

 same colour all the year round. 



Now, if you enter a copse in spring the eye i& 

 delighted with cowslips on the banks where the sun- 

 light comes, with blue-bells, or earlier with anemones 

 and violets, while later the ferns rise. But enter the 

 semi-parks of the semi-country seat, with its affected 

 assumption of countryness, and there is not one of 

 these. The fern is actually purposely eradicated — 

 just think ! Purposely ! Though indeed they would 

 not grow, one would think, under rhododendrons and 

 laurels, cold-blooded laurels. They will grow under 

 hawthorn, ash, or beside the bramble bushes. 



If there chance to be a little pond or ^' fountain," 

 there is no such thing as a reed, or a flag, or a rush. 

 How the rushes would be hastily hauled out and 

 Jaurled away with execrations ! 



Besides the greater beauty of English trees, shrubs^ 



