A Thirsty June 
an old belief Red Lilies were sacred to Trolls and Wood- 
women ; and in Spain and Germany it was said that the 
Red Martagon Lily — Herb of Mars — gathered with prayer, 
had the power of dispelling enchantment. Red Lilies were 
the badge of the Guelph, and White Lilies have been called 
Mary Lilies, after the Virgin, for many a long day. 
I was very busy to-day training and trimming a hedge 1 
have planted of Sweetbriar, Syringa and Roses ; it bids fair to 
be “very agreeable to both sight and smell,” as somebody 
says. I am meditating a hedge of China-roses and Pyrus 
Japonica, called Fairy-fire, I think, in Ireland. The idea is 
not original, I must confess. During that oasis of peace in 
the uneasy life of the great Irish patriot, Lord Edward 
Fitzgerald, when he lived at Frascati, so pleasantly described 
in Moore’s Life of him, as re-edited so sympathetically by 
Mr. MacDermott, when Lord Edward took his ease making 
a garden, among the pleasant plans he laid, with the little 
wife he loved, was a hedge of China-roses, mixed with Pyrus 
Japonica. Prince de Ligny, I think it was, who said plot- 
ting was incompatible with gardening. 
I have heard that a pleasant conserve can be made of 
Pyrus Japonica fruit, but I have never met with it, or with 
any one who has tasted it. The purple Rhododendron is 
in great abundance and beauty just now, but I wish we had 
the crimson kind ; I so much prefer it. The Strawberries 
are beginning slowly to ripen ; one or two have already been 
“ sampled.” Strawberry is such an odd name ; I wonder 
if it really does come from the Saxon word Streow berie , 
meaning “stray,” because the runners stray so far ? Another 
explanation is because straw is put under the berries to 
prevent them getting muddy. The different varieties have 
sometimes very quaint names ; I like particularly Strawberry 
Fillbasket. But in vain have I wandered up and down by 
the Strawberry-bed when the leaves have been dying, to try 
and smell the “ most Excellent Cordiall Smell” which Bacon 
declares they have. It is a plant of great antiquity. Virgil 
and Ovid knew and delighted in it. According to my old 
Herbal it has many virtues, one of which is, it is said to 
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