Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

protection. The paths were laid with that short turf that grows on Surrey commons, and only wants mowing three or four times a year. The planting had been done with the greatest skill, almost imperceptibly getting more and more cared for and refined as it got nearer the house. Here I saw, among many other things, the finest specimens of the smaller Magnolias, Stellata and Conspicua. This surprised me, as I thought they required heavy soil. The ground had been thoroughly well made, and they were well away from any trees that could rob them ; but in the lightest, dryest soil they were far finer plants than the specimen plants in the grass lawns at Kew. This whole garden was such a beautiful contrast from the usual planning and clearing-away of all the natural advantages that generally surround a place which is being built or altered. The land, as a rule, is dug over and made flat, and planted in the usual horrible shrubbery style. I have seen such wonderful natural advantages thrown away, a copse laid low to extend a lawn, a lovely spring, which could have been turned into a miniature river, made into a circular pond, with Laurels, Rhododendrons, and other shrubs dotted about, and twisted gravel paths made round it. Another lovely natural pond I knew, into which the rains drained, though nearly at the top of a hill, where water was precious and scarce. Now it is cemented all round with hard, cold cement, on which nothing can grow, and into which, in the wettest of weather, the water can no longer drain. The pond never fills, and nothing can grow around it. I know few things more depressing than an utter want of feeling for Nature's ways of playing the artist, as she does at every turn. I cannot understand anyone walking down a hilly road after rain without admiring the action of the water on its surface, with the beautiful curves and turns and sand islands that Nature 172 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN leaves in playful imitation of her grandest efforts — the St. Lawrence, for instance, cutting its way to the sea through its over two thousand miles of flat plains in North America. It has long been said, ' God sends the food, and the Devil sends the cook.' I am sure the same might be said of the owners, the nurserymen, and the landscape gardeners, who most carefully, as a rule, throw away every single natural advantage of the piece of ground they are laying out, and believe they are ' improving ' ! What would give me the greatest pleasure would be to have the laying-out of a little place on the side of a hill with a fine view to the south and west, and the land sloping away and gently terraced till it reached the plain at the bottom. But for this kind of garden clever terracing and a good supply of water are absolutely necessary.