APRIL 291 



book. The whole family, and especially this one from 

 Mr. Veitch, seems to me as well worth growing as any- 

 thing I know among spring -flowering shrubs. 



April 20th. — We have walked this evening down to 

 the old mill by the river Mole. I have, not unnaturally, 

 a great affection for a watermill, as I passed all my 

 childhood so close to its thumping mysteries, and my 

 bedroom window as a girl was just above the rushing 

 mill-tail, where the brown trout lay under the Laurels. 

 My old mill is all modernised and altered now, while 

 here the miller says with pride : ' I have been here fifty- 

 two years, and I grind the flour with the old stones — no 

 modern china rollers for me ! ' We buy his flour — his 

 'seconds' and his 'whole -meal' — and his bran. The 

 latter is what we really went down to fetch, as one of 

 my nieces is fond of bran -water. This wildly stimu- 

 lating beverage — far too much a tonic for my age — is an 

 American drink. You pour cold water on two handfuls 

 of fresh bran, let it stand for four hours, and then pour 

 it off. It is supposed to contain some of the phosphates 

 in the husks of the wheat, and consequently has much 

 of the nourishing qualities of brown bread. 



April 26th. — Last year at this time I was able to go 

 and hear at the Drill Hall, Westminster, Mr. Burbidge's 

 exceedingly interesting address on ' Fragrant Leaves and 

 Sweet -smelling Flowers.' This lecture has since been 

 published in the ' Journal ' of the Horticultural Society 

 for October, 1898. 



Beyond wishing to remind others how much pleasure 

 and instruction one gets from being a Fellow of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society, I take a sentence from his 

 lecture which seems useful and desirable for all gar- 

 deners. He says : ' I want you to rate all fragrant 

 foliage quite as highly as you now profess to value 

 sweet-scented blossoms. I also want to point out some 



