34 SIR PETER EADE ON “ MY CITY GARDEN.” 
wall, contains some very ancient and still productive apple trees 
also two or three beech trees, and an old pink May-tree, under the 
shade of which some of the commoner ferns flourish abundantly. 
A vinery, and a verandah utilised as a summer conservatory, 
complete this note of the arrangements of my city garden, and 
from this brief record it will be seen that an effort has been 
made to make every use of the available space and of its several 
possibilities. 
I do not propose to detain you with any detailed account of the 
flowers and plants which can be grown, or which flourish fairly 
at the present date in this limited city garden. There are many 
which are hopeless by reason of the city air and city soil. And 
I have found the more delicate flowers to be so uncertain as to 
be scarcely worth the trouble of planting out. Others again fall 
inevitable victims to the myriads of autumn slugs. But spring 
bulbs, the autumn hardy flowers, and some annuals, as well as the 
robuster ferns, do well, and fully repay the trouble of cultivation. 
As to ferns, in my former and more open garden higher up 
the street, I once had as many as forty different varieties growing 
abroad ; but, of course, these gradually died out, so that at the end 
of four or five years only the commoner and hardier sorts remained. 
Some of these, which were removed, are still very fine specimens, 
and have lasted in their new home, as such, for many years. 
It would have been very interesting had any list or catalogue of 
Sir Thomas Browne’s “ paradise ” of vegetable rarities been left to 
us, for a comparison of the possibilities of a city garden 200 years 
ago with those of the present day, but none such is known to exist. 
I have mentioned the fact that several old apple trees exist in 
my garden, possibly as old as the house itself, which is understood 
to have been built 160 or 170 years ago. And I would just 
mention here that beyond the roof of my stable buildings, and seen 
conspicuously from my garden, rises — nay, towers up towards the 
sky, that grand old Aspen-poplar, which is, perhaps, the greatest 
ornament of the adjacent Chapel Field, though I think scarcely 
adequately appreciated. This tree has a girth of some 15 feet 
about a yard above the ground, is 90 to 100 feet high, and was 
so remarkable even 58 years ago as to have been then pictured by 
Crigor, in his ‘Eastern Arboretum,’ as one of the most notable 
trees in this district. In its later state a photographic sketch of it 
