March 1, 1904 
a yellow in it, seen in nothing else that I 
remember, except the oak fern, whence I 
take it this last has its name. Then there 
was the ‘‘ big’ beech,” covering who knows 
what area, and giving shelter in its time to 
countless generations of children who 
played under its branches and fattened on 
its mast. The beech accumulates its hard- 
wood but slowly, and this particular 
behemoth must have been centuries old. 
As for our oaks, there are no doubt older, 
larger, and mossier oaks elsewhere, but 
ours were old and large enough for me. 
Then there were hoary spruces, the abode 
and breeding place of squirrels, miles of 
larch, with its green and crimson tassels, 
sweetest of all the conifers, and each larch 
seemed to have its chaffinch ; silver birches 
by every stream, hollies too heavily berried 
for the birds to make an impression, 
cathedrels of Scotch firs, coverts of hazel, 
ivy, the small-leaved wild kind everywhere ; 
tangles of honeysuckle and occasional colo- 
nies of sloe or white thorn. Further, these 
woods provided that without which no wood 
is perfect—solitude. You might wander 
through them a summer’s day and meet 
none of your own species, nothing but 
harmless fer@ nature, a pair of cushat doves 
or so, a0 occasional roe or squirrel, a pair 
wood wrens or some small deer. 
In this country lay the first Daffodil 
garden I knew—the appurtenance to an old, 
stone, ivy-covered farmhouse, roofed atop 
with lichened slates, under which stray 
swarms of bees found harborage; a utilita- 
rian garden, where flower, fruit, and vege- 
table grew in beauty side by side, not that 
there were elaborate mathematical devices 
filled with the primary colors; curves there 
were none, the people who walked in that 
garden always taking the shortest distances 
between two points. Even the gardener 
who was put there to dress it and to keep it 
did his work in a toying, amateurish way, 
as if he were the garden’s leisurely owner 
and no hired servant. The garden plan 
was simplicity itself—a broad grass walk 
forming a square whose sides were parallel 
with the wall, and two broader grass walks 
dividing the first square into four shorter; 
along the sides of the walks, flowers, 
gooseberry bushes and standard fruit trees ; 
inside these, vegetables. ‘The gooseberries, 
as L remember them, were the sweetest in 
the world, the apples the sourest. As for 
pears and plums they were a mockery, 
except for blossom, and that was splendid. 
The apples (many of them) were little 
better than crabs, but in blossom time they 
were as fine as the best golden pippins-— 
finer indeed, for the blossom of the golden 
pippin, I understand, is a trifle pale, 
whereas these sour, old moss-covered apple 
trees were hidden every spring in blossom, 
exquisitely flushed with pink, and some 
varieties were sweet aud mellow even 
in the fruits; the small yellow, cracked 
oslin, for instance, and the oval, brown- 
-cheeked Jenny Sinclair. ‘he cherries were 
famous—blossom and fruit, more particu- 
larly one large wild cherry tree, locally 
called by the French name guigne, which in 
‘spring, when it was a sheet of blossom, was 
the haunt of the cuckoo; and in autumn, 
when its branches were red with fruit, 
haunted by blackbirds and by other bipeds 
THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
of a lighter color. The walnut trees on 
each side of the gate bore beautiful large 
nuts with nothing in them, but Bacon must 
have had their leaves in his mind when he 
said that ‘‘ certainly virtue is like precious 
odors—most fragrant when they are in- 
censed or crushed.”. ans 
As for flowers they were not very nume- 
rous or very various, or particularly choice. 
They were of the robust kind that, once 
planted, can hold their own; and yet they 
were sweet enough. There were bunckes 
of auriculas, black, snuff- brown, and 
yellow, which were seldom, if ever, trans- 
‘plaated; more particularly there were 
frequent bunches of an early anricula that 
came with the primrose—pale lilac, sweet- 
smelling, smooth-leaved and dustless. .I 
believe it must have been the orizinal 
alpine species, and I desire it now more 
than the finest yreen or grey-edged. Cab- 
bage roses were plentiful, feeble as to stem 
and foliage, but large and plethoric as to 
their flowers. ‘‘ Oabbage” roses, indeed ! 
There were also crimson damask Roses, long 
and filbert shaped in the bud, and semi- 
double in the exposed state; also streaked 
York and Lancaster; also a white .full- 
petalled summer rose, which grew a!moat to 
a tree, sweetest of roses for fragrance— 
Resa alba, I suppose. There were purple 
delphiniums and blue veined Aconites— 
‘‘ Monks-hood,”’ as we called it, or some- 
times ‘‘ priests’ poison.’”’ There were balm 
of Gilead, Rose of Sharon, Lily of the 
Valley, and no doubt other things known to 
Solomon; hepatica and the blue navelwort ; 
spirceas, gardeners’ garters, the purple 
flower-de luce, ‘and southernwood ; on the 
summer house, ivy, travellers’ joy, yellow 
corcnorus, the larger bindweed, and flower- 
ing current, the double red (which, strange 
to say, bore berries) and the single white. 
The lilac trees seemed to grow out of the 
stone wall, but their trusses of flower 
ehowed that they did not want for a yood 
root-run. 
Seeing that I began with Daffodils, all 
this may seem, as the French would say, 
‘apropos of boots,” but, in the manner of 
arondeau, I return to my original theme. 
Every year the garden had its ‘spring 
cleaning,” so that by the Ist of April every- 
thing was spic and span—all dead matter 
removed, raspberry canes and gooseberry 
bushes severely trimmed, and the soil 
delved and raked. At this particular 
juncture the Daffodils availed themselves to 
come out in bunches innumerable, regularly 
marshalled hke an army, and therefore 
somewhat formal in arrangement, but all 
the betier suited to the style of the garden, 
which affected straight lines. With all my 
varieties of Daffodil and various styles of 
planting, I am afraid I have never pro- 
duced any more telling effect than was seen 
every spring in that homely garden. Per- 
haps it is that bygone joys loom large 
through the mist of memory. ‘Too well 
I know, where’er E go, 
That there hath passed away a glory from the 
earth, 
But still I know also that the fairness of 
that garden was not altogether in the youth 
of the eyes that saw it. Yet it possessed 
only three varieties of Narcissus — a 
medium-sized Nonsuch Daffodil, Narcissus 
odorous, and a Narcissus poeticus, which 
came a few days later thin the Daffodil— 
ornatus, I should think, from its earlin ‘es. 
Nor was there any transplanting or thion og 
for twenty years at least, except perh ips 
when bulbs were given away. ln my 
garden no Nurcissus known to me wold 
remain satisfied with this treatment. The 
bulbs would crowd and jostle each other, 
and ultimately the blooms would de- 
teriorate. But that old garden had a lishe 
pebbly soil resting on a gravelly botts un; 
whereas my garden has a somewhat he.vy 
loam resting on hard clay, and this muy 
make the difference. However that may 
be, the multiplication of varieties is he- 
coming a matter for serious consiaerati > + 
A. W.—‘“ The Garden.” 
THE FRAGRANT PINK. 
The sweet-smelling pink is now a pro os. 
nent subject in the floral procassion of the 
year. It is one of the bardiest of our 
hardy perennials, and though old plauce 
sometimes suffer from the rigors of the 
winter, yet it posseeses a remarkable capa- 
city for recovering itself, and plants to «il 
appearance in extremis become ciothed& 
with foliage and laden with blossom. Many 
of the old florists of a past genera‘iom 
commenced thetr floricultural career by 
cultivating the pink. We have heard the 
veteran John Keynes (long since depar ai) 
tell how, when a lad, he, unknown by hie 
father, pawned his watch to buy his iies¢ 
collection of pinks. The varieties which + 
purchased in this way would not now bx 
growo as border flowers, so great has » 
the improvement made in the pink durin, 
the past half century. Some seventy- ve 
or so years ago there were but few Hl riste 
in the south, except Maddock, who was 
succeeded by Groom and Davy, of O iets: 
anil plants of florists flowers were princi 
pally supplied from the north, whore florists 
largely abounded, and where floricult trak 
enterprise was most active; it is on re:ord 
that one Thomas was the collector or bayer 
for the southern florists, by which he m «le 
an independency and retired. It is diffi ult 
at this point of time to say exactly whece 
the first laced pink was produced, but it wag 
probably one vamed Lady Stoverdale, 
which appeared about 150 years ago; Up 
tu that time we can imagine the pink was a 
flower with a dark centre, and petals quite 
white and free from any tint of eotur, 
answerlug to the black aud white of latter— 
day florists, but nuw a very scarce type: 
indeed. Nor can it be stated with certa.ucy 
whether the purple or red lacing charac- 
terised the earliest productions showing the 
laced form. To Groom and Davy succesled 
Looker, who raised many varieties, Young, 
Smith, Kirtland, Costar, and others, fol 
lowed later by Dr. Maclean, Turuer, 
Reynes, Bragg, Read, and others. At that 
time there were many pink shows hel& 
about the country and around London, one 
in particular at Twyford, Hants, where 
Young, a noted raiser and cultivator, 
resided. thomas Hogg, of Paddingion, 
appears to have been more of a grower 
than a raiser, but the appearance of his 
treatise on the Piuk gave a great impotua 
to the cultivation and exhibition of this 
