IST APRIL. 



IT WOULD be interesting to look up records and see in how 

 many years and in how many places Good Friday is a glorious 

 sunny day and Easter Sunday and Monday cold and wet. 

 How well I remember in my childhood days picking primroses 

 in the woods on Good Friday, the sun shining, birds singing 

 and the stupendous feeling that nothing was too good to happen, 

 for spring had come again ! In the background was the know- 

 ledge of a new frock and hat to be worn on Easter Sunday, 

 and possibly a picnic to the sea on the Monday. But it was 

 always a case of " Gather ye rosebuds while ye may " ; for 

 Easter Sunday always came in cold and wet, and we were 

 sternly bidden to put on our winter coats for church. We 

 would hope against hope for the Monday ; but we usually 

 had to buoy up our nagging spirits with " Rain before seven, 

 etc.," and later we would try " Between one and two you'll 

 see what the day is going to do " ; but usually we stayed at 

 home. 



Here this year, as usual, we had the most perfect Good 

 Friday, and campers poured forth clad in the scantiest of shorts 

 and had their one perfect day ; but Saturday came in wet with 

 showers all day, and Sunday morning is clearing but cloudy. 



As for me, Easter always means seed-sowing, and Thursday 

 this year was two days before the full moon. I am an ardent 

 believer in the moon's influence on germinating seeds, so I 

 worked away all day sowing Protea and Leucospermum seeds. 

 These I put in every year with high hopes, but the more I 

 ponder the question the less I can account for the results that 

 I obtain. Some years they come well and quickly : more often 

 they do not. Sometimes a few come right away, and the rest 

 germinate in spring or the following autumn. Sometimes old 

 seeds do best ; sometimes only the fresh ones show signs of 

 life. However, we go on and take what we get and don't 

 expect too much. 



The high-light in the garden now is Liparia sphaerica; and 

 my one plant is truly a magnificent specimen. It is the first 



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