72 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



flowers ! Where is there such choice ? You 

 have, in different parts of the place, clay soil and 

 sandy soil, and on the higher ground chalk, and 

 the vegetation appertaining to each, as also 

 results In growth and colour tone consequent on 

 blending the various plant foods. I declare that 

 you get almost as many different kinds of 

 flowering nettles here as you do varieties of other 

 blooms of all sorts in less favoured localities. 

 Primroses — despite the traffic in these for market, 

 especially on Disraeli day — you may stand in one 

 place and pick a basketful. Bluebells — the banks 

 will be blue with them. Wild anemones — they 

 make a pinky- white carpet, thick as Millais's 

 fallen apple blossoms. Cowslips — If the 

 Lincolnshire people came this way they would 

 start a cowslip wine brewery as big as Bass's 

 show, or getting on towards that in importance. 

 Wild geraniums and orchids, dog violets, cuckoo 

 flowers, lords and ladles In full orange-berry glory, 

 and all the many blooming weeds with which we 

 are so familiar, except In giving them a name — 

 there they are so that you can mow them with a 

 scythe. 



Healthy ? I believe you. I said it was just 

 now, but will not write too much for fear that 

 Mr Hodgkinson may do away with the racing 

 in order to cover his acres with a gigantic sana- 

 torium, and so over-populate the land that there 

 will not be flowers enough to "go round." Just 

 one word more, though, as to health. Come 

 with me and be introduced to an old friend, quite 

 a young chap In his way, who shall be a sample 

 ofa dweller in these parts. How old .-^ Eighty 

 last Christmas, and as sound as a bell. (You 

 may prefer a bell of brass — why bell of brass, or, 



