AN ISLAND GARDEN 51 



planted and am going to continue planting till 

 the middle of June, in this year of grace 1893, no 

 less than two whole ounces of Shirley Poppies in 

 all, and when one reflects that the seeds are so 

 small as to be hardly more than visible to the 

 naked eye, one realizes this to be a great many. 



May 1 2th. Again a radiant day. I watched 

 the thin white half ring of the waning moon as it 

 stole up the east through the May haze at dawn. 

 This kind of haze belongs especially to this 

 month ; it is such an exquisite color, like ashes 

 of roses, till the sun suffuses it with a burning 

 blush before he leaps alive from the ocean's rim. 

 Again in the garden at a little after six, to find 

 the sparrows busy tunneling up and down the 

 bank, devouring the Poppies that I planted yes- 

 terday. How they can see the seeds at all, or 

 why they should care to feast on anything so 

 small, or why they do not all perish, as poor 

 Pillicoddy proposed doing, from the effects of 

 such doses of opium, passes my understanding. 

 There was nothing to be done but to plant them 

 all over and then trail through the dewy grass 

 long boards to lay up and down, covering the 

 bank, for protection. 



First, there were the small Tea Rosebushes to 

 be set out in their sunny bed, made rich with 

 finely sifted manure and soot and a sprinkling 

 of wood ashes. And here let me say that all 

 through the spring, beginning when the hardy 

 Damask and Jacqueminots, etc., are just unfold- 

 ing their leaf buds, it is a most excellent plan to 

 sift wood ashes quite thickly over all the Rose- 



