SUMMER THOUGHTS IN WINTER 



the late Sir Frank Crisp at Friar Park, his place 

 upon the Thames. 



And here before spring has fairly opened I begin 

 planning for another year. 'On this earth,' says 

 Margaret Symonds in that rare book of hers, 

 "Days Spent on a Doge's Farm," 'one season is 

 usually spent in looking for signs of the next.' 

 More planting of the crocus is needed here, to 

 give an even more natural-looking picture, a little 

 cross-current, so to say, of the lavender; and the 

 introduction perhaps of loose groups of Iris reticu- 

 lata for the sake of its green spears alone, as the 

 snowdrops and this species of crocus bloom much 

 earlier than the iris. A few feet away from my 

 Alpine valley the iris leaves are in plenty and a 

 more determined plant I never hope to see. Its 

 green leaves have pierced as with needle-points 

 thick, wet masses of last year's fallen leaves, and, 

 as the irises are here in rounding groups, the efiFect 

 is of brown pin-cushions studded with green pins. 



How well Walter Prichard Eaton has said, for 

 us who live the year round in the country, that 

 spring does not, as many people think, begin with 

 apple-blossoms; but when its bagpipes, like those 

 at Lucknow, 'were heard far off and faint,' 

 'when the little frogs pipe from each, warm pool; 



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