IO 
NATURE NOTES 
Then I remember that lilac bush with its clumps of flowers, the 
golden chains of the laburnum, and the pearl-white flowers and 
delicate foliage of the acacia. Hard by the last-named was the 
fernery, and how well I remember scampering round the winding 
paths after a gale for any fallen pears from the tall pear tree 
overhead, in the topmost branches of which the sparrows always 
nested, and how I longed to climb the dizzy heights and peep 
inside that paraphernalia nest. 
Those bunches of primroses in early spring, snowdrops and 
crocuses, scarlet and pink geraniums, and golden and brown 
calceolarias, many-hued pansies and antirrhinums, sweet-smelling 
wallflowers and pinks, auriculas and polyanthus, lilies of the 
valley and oxlips, bluebells and periwinkles, woodruff and 
daffodils, nutmeg and syringa, guelder rose and mountain ash, 
stonecrop and day lilies, lavender and clematis, mignonette and 
hops, violets and Canterbury bells, Solomon’s seal and gorgeous 
passion flowers, stocks and phloxes, flowering currant and tulips, 
canary creeper and white rock cress, anemones and variegated 
grasses, lupins and dielytras, London pride and foxgloves, 
celandine and forget-me-nots, honeysuckle and larkspur, poppies 
and star of Bethlehem, pansy and wood sorrel, chrysanthemums 
and asters, fuchsias and Michaelmas daisies, sweet Williams, 
candytuft and nasturtiums, and other sweet and old loved 
flowers and trees flourished and were tended with loving hands 
in the garden of my youth, and I seem to see them now blossom- 
ing in all their pristine beauty. 
Then in the fruit and vegetable garden many a happy day 
and favourite nook is brought before my view ; those white heart 
cherries, about which the blackbirds and thrushes — and some- 
times a rosy-breasted bullfinch— so often quarrelled ; those 
clusters of black, red and white currants, and large red and 
yellow gooseberries, bright scarlet strawberries and tinted 
peaches, the cucumber frames, the dark damsons and the prize 
Victoria plums; the greenhouse with its store of treasures, chief 
among which were purple grapes and a grand collection of 
cactus plants. The herb bed, too, I call to mind and seem as 
if I can catch the sweet scent from the rue, the marjoram, the 
sage, the thyme, and other herbs, which are too little grown in 
our gardens of to-day. I see, too, that little border which 
constituted my very own garden ; how anxiously I watched the 
growth of my plants ; how often I forked them up to see if they 
were growing. How I used to plant cowslips with their roots 
uppermost in the belief that they would transform themselves 
into oxlips by such a procedure, and how disappointed I was 
when neither oxlip nor cowslip was the result ! Those large 
cooking pears — the size of a cricket ball — and the cooking apples 
on the trained trees by the path sides ; I see them now as they 
hung in days gone by, but have I not written sufficient already 
of the pleasant memories and happy associations of that dear 
old garden — the garden of my youth. 
W. Percival Westall, M.B.O.U. 
