In My Vicarage Garden 



an exception to almost every other plant, whether 

 tree, bulb, or herbaceous, is a puzzle which I 

 cannot solve. The fruit trees were all as full of 

 flower as they can well carry, and there is a 

 promise of an abundance of fruit of all sorts. The 

 plum-trees were a wonderful sight, as they all 

 burst into flower at once, soon after Easter ; and 

 where the orchard was surrounded by a hedge of 

 their near relation or ancestor, the blackthorn, the 

 beauty was much increased. The blackthorn 

 brought with it the usual " blackthorn winter," 

 but it was short and not severe enough to do 

 harm. The season also introduced me to a 

 beauty in tree life which was quite new to me. 

 We have very few wild birches in Gloucestershire ; 

 but I was in Surrey just after Easter, and was 

 surprised to see the birches apparently surrounded 

 with a pale golden mist that I had never noticed 

 before. The apparent mist was produced by the 

 catkins which generally come out with, or even 

 after the leaves ; this year they came out first, 

 and so their beauty was not hidden. Another 

 very marked feature in the garden this year is in 

 the seeds. All sown seeds have done wonderfully, 

 whether sown in pots and raised by heat, or sown 

 in the open ground. This naturally comes from 

 the dry sunny summer of 1 899, which fully ripened 

 all seeds. And it was most apparent in the number 

 of self-sown seedlings that have shown themselves, 

 in many cases for the first time. I never before 

 had the pleasure of seeing self-sown seedlings of 

 16 



