XXXIII] LITERARY WORK, ETC., 1887-1905 203 



south sun shut off by a house and by several oak trees, while 

 exposed to north and east winds, and wishing for a generally 

 milder climate, I spent some weeks in exploring the country 

 between Godalming and Portsmouth, and then westward to 

 Bournemouth and Poole. I had let my house from Lady 

 Day, and had moved temporarily into another, and there- 

 fore wished to decide quickly. We were directed by some 

 friends to Parkstone as a very pretty and sheltered place, 

 and here we found a small house to be let, which suited us 

 tolerably well, with the option of purchase at a moderate 

 price. The place attracted us because we saw abundance of 

 great bushes of the evergreen purple veronicas, which must 

 have been a dozen or twenty years old, and also large speci- 

 mens of eucalyptus ; while we were told that there had been 

 no skating there for twenty years. We accordingly took the 

 house, and purchased it in the following year ; and by adding 

 later a new kitchen and bedroom, and enlarging the drawing- 

 room, converted it from a cramped, though very pretty 

 cottage, into a convenient, though still small house. The 

 garden on the south side was in a hollow on the level of the 

 basement, while on the north it was from ten to thirty feet 

 higher, there being on the east a high bank, with oak trees 

 and pines, producing a very pretty effect. This bank, as well 

 as the lower part of the garden, was peat or peaty sand, and 

 as I knew this was good for rhododendrons and heaths, I 

 was much pleased to be able to grow these plants. I did 

 not then know, however, that this peaty soil was quite un- 

 suited to a great many other plants, and only learnt this by 

 the long experience which every gardener has to go through. 



During the eight years I had lived at Godalming, I had 

 greatly enjoyed my garden, and had grown, more or less 

 successfully, an immense number of hardy and half-hardy 

 plants in about half an acre of ground. The soil was of the 

 Lower Greensand formation, with a thin layer of leaf-mould, 

 the whole district having been originally woodland and copse. 

 On the whole this soil was the best for gardening purposes I 

 have ever had, being easy to work, and well suited to a great 

 variety of herbaceous plants and shrubs, and especially to 



