OUT WITH A SAW, 



Young Plants 

 Best. 



is the case at Holkham , where my father- 

 in-law, Lord Leicester, has planted hun- 

 dreds of Laricio and Austriaca on the 

 sand hills on the sea beach, where they 

 are in the most flourishing condition. 



Some of the plantations were made 

 by digging holes to plant the trees, and 

 larger plants were put 

 in; but the best and 

 cheapest way is the sys- 

 tem of notching and putting in small 

 plants 9 to 15 inches high, as these 

 do not shake with the wind and get 

 settled in the soil, whereas the larger 

 plants get shaken and many of them 

 do not thrive in consequence. The 

 fencing in of the land taken up for 

 planting must be done, of course, before 

 planting is commenced, and while the 

 trees are young rabbits must be exter- 

 minated. I have specimens of Pwus in- 

 signis and Abies Donglasii of my own 

 planting which stand now 70. and 80 

 feet high and 6 to 7 feet in girth. — 

 The Times. 



Lawn Gardens at Oxford. — These gardens of New 

 College are indescribably beautiful, — lawns of the 

 richest green and softest velvet grass, shadowed over 

 by ancient trees, that had lived a quiet life here for 

 centuries, and have been nursed and tended with such 

 care, and so sheltered from rude winds, that certainly 

 they must have been the happiest of all trees. Such 

 a sweet, quiet, sacred, stately seclusion — so age-long 

 as this has been, and, I hope, will continue to be — 

 cannot exist anywhere else. We concluded the ram- 

 bles of the day by visiting the gardens of St. John's 

 College ; and I desire, if possible, to say even more in 

 admiration of them than of those of New College, — 

 such beautiful lawns with ancient trees, and heavy 

 clouds of foliage, and sunny glimpses through arch- 

 ways of leafy branches, where, to-day, we could 

 see parties of girls, making cheerful contrast with 

 the sombre walls and solemn shade. The world, 

 surely, has not another place like Oxford ; it is a 

 despair to see such a place, and ever to leave it, for it 

 would take a lifetime, and more than one, to com- 

 prehend and enjoy it satisfactorily. — Nathaniel 

 Hawthorn. 



OUT WITH A SAW. 



To those who love their gardens this is perhaps 

 the dreariest time of the year. Everything is 

 either ice-bound or in that state of clammy 

 saturation which is yet more cheerless. The 

 last of the red leaves and scarlet berries passes 

 with Christmas, and it is too soon to look for 

 the first flower of spring. Spite of its poetic 

 associations, personally I find it very difficult 



1 to get up much enthusiasm over this " first 

 flower." It is commonly a forlorn little pro- 

 duction whose appearance strongly suggests 

 that it would have done better to lie low a 

 little longer; but, after all, there is comfort in 

 the thought that the shortest day is well over, 

 and a spray of winter-flowering Jasmine, or 

 a whiff of the Winter Heliotrope (Tussilago 



fragrans) will not allow us to become quite 

 misanthropical. And there is work that may 

 be done in the intervals of bad weather, deli- 

 cate touches to bear fruit hereafter, and that 

 without coming in contact with the clammy 

 soil, or plodding through newly turned land. 



What better chance is there, while thesum- 

 mer-leafing trees are bare, of passing in review 

 those trees and shrubs of our gardens and plea- 

 sure grounds which often receive scant atten- 

 tion at other times. English trees are sadly 

 neglected and often left to shift for themselves 

 in away unthought of in other countries. Our 

 neighbours across the channel err in the other 

 direction, and can never leave their trees alone 

 long enough for them to throw off that arti- 

 ficial look so characteristic of closely trimmed 

 stems. In many parts of France it robs the 

 country of much of its wooded beauty and so 

 leaves its impress on the landscape that English 

 travellers can detect at once their foreign sur- 

 roundings by this alone. Such light wood has 

 little value with ourselves, but in a land where 

 coal is scarce these trimmings are turned to 

 good account by the peasant, the prunings that 

 an Englishman would despise being gathered 

 to " boil the coffee." The use of the old wood- 

 heated ovens all over the Continent creates also 

 a demand for brushwood which gives even light 

 wood a value, so that in many places the lop- 

 pings of the wayside trees (which are carefully 

 tended) produces a revenue for highway re- 

 pairs. Unfortunately , in his passion for economy 

 the French peasant often sacrifices the beauty 

 of his trees, which are made to look like lank 



