DECEMBER 



Lonely evenings and more papers — Figs from France — Hornbeams 

 and Weeping Hornbeams — Wire netting round small fruit trees 

 —Damsons — Roman Hyacinths and Paper-white Narcissus — 

 Effect of coloured glass on plants — Use of corrugated iron — 

 Ijord Lyndoch — Cultivation of Mistletoe — A list of plants — 

 Anniversary present-giving — Christmas decorations — Acetylene 

 gas — The old learning to live alone — Eeceipts. 



December 1st. — I have been turning out more old let- 

 ters, and among other papers, with other memories and 

 connected with other times, I found this fragment of 

 what was evidently intended to be an autobiography of a 

 long life. As a sketch of a little boy's life nearly sev- 

 enty years ago, with its allusions to foreign lands and 

 customs now nearly extinct, I think it is not entirely 

 devoid of interest. I omit an account given of the 

 writer's family, the story of his father and mother, and 

 his own birth in Switzerland : 



' My early youth was passed in many different places, 

 but I have not much recollection of them. One season 

 we had a house in Hereford Street, Park Lane — a site 

 now occupied by Hereford Gardens. I remember cows 

 being milked for purchasers in Hyde Park, and Blacks 

 playing the cymbals in the bands of the Guards. 



' When very young we went to Scotland, where my 

 father, who was very devoted to every sort of sport, 

 enjoyed his life immensely. Those days were before the 

 railway period, and an Englishman in Scotland was a 

 comparatively rare person. 



' Whilst I was in Edinburgh I went with my brother 



("9) 



