THE WALNUT. 



GENERAL REMARKS. 



MONGST the pleasant things which draw us back, year 

 by year, to certain familiar places in the woods, is the 

 scent of growing things, each of which is the essence 

 of some one or other of the seasons, and from each of 

 which the spirit of association is distilled. The sweet balsam-scent 

 of the Poplars belongs to the plantation below the wood, where 

 the spongy soil is intersected by water ditches. The place is one of 

 Nature's gardens, and it is freshly filled every season with anemones 

 and king-cups, primroses, campions and forget-me-nots, no less fragrant 

 than the Poplar-buds, while the undergrowth is tangled with honey-suckles. 

 It seems but a short time since the Poplars, which now make a 

 forest of delicate spires far out of reach, were no higher than a 

 man's hand. There is change in this respect, but otherwise the 

 pastoral of the seasons is repeated continually and with but little 

 outward variation. Every spring the blackbirds call loudly and 

 persistently through the lengthening evenings : year in year out the 

 birds choose the same trees tor their nesting-places, and the wild 

 garden is full of the same flowers. The little waterways lead to 

 the swamp below, where Alders have been set to reclaim the waste 

 to more useful purposes than can be served by its present carpet of 

 vivid green, adorned with the beautiful star-clusters of the white 

 garlic, beautiful to the eye, but no fit flowers for a nosegay, with 

 their pungent smell. Although it is not the sweets alone which 

 have their associations : rank and sour as the nettles are which 

 luxuriate under the rookery hard by, they recall the hot summer 



