OCTOBER 187 



Turnips are often strong and hard with us. This 

 year they are delicious, and we have had a very pretty 

 dish — much appreciated — of small round Turnips boiled 

 tender, and served with a white sauce made of milk boiled 

 tiU it thickens, into which has been stirred a little butter 

 and cream. 



Carrots, too, are deUcious done in this way with the 

 addition of a Uttle parsley and sugar. 



The following is a good cake : — The weight in flour 

 of four eggs ; beat to a cream, butter, sugar, rind of lemon 

 grated, a few Sultanas, and citron ; then add the yelk of 

 each egg, one by one ; then add the flour, and beat the 

 white of the eggs to a froth just before putting it into the 

 oven. Bake for half an hour in a flat tin dish. 



October IQth. — I have at last succeeded in flowering 

 the Schizostylis coccinea. I am reheved to see that in 

 the new edition of the ' English Flower Garden ' this is 

 pronounced a great difficulty in a light dry soil. It is 

 probably owing to the very wet autumn we have had 

 that these Uttle Cape bulbs have done so well. They 

 were planted in fairly good garden soU, under the pro- 

 tection and shade of a wall facing east ; so they did not 

 get much sun except early in the year, when at rest ; and 

 when they began to grow, they were watered till the rain 

 came. When the flower-spikes began to colour and 

 nearly open, as the nights were very cold, I cut them and 

 put them in water in a warm room, and they bloomed 

 quite weU. Two or three sticks as a support, and mats or 

 newspaper thrown over them, help these late-flowering 

 plants in prematurely cold weather, which often lasts only 

 a day or two. 



October 24:th. — This is about the time we replant the 

 Violas and Saxifrages in the sunny beds, taking them 

 out of the shady border in the reserve garden. London 

 Pride is better taken up and divided every two years. As 



