Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

Chervil is always used in France for spring decoration of fish, cold meat, &c. It is much hardier and more easily grown than Parsley, and lives through the coldest weather if covered up with sticks and fern. In severe winters Parsley sometimes fails in English gardens. The life in the little French town near which we were was like a page out of a volume of Balzac's ' Vie de Province/ so full of character, and, in a sense, so far away and old-fashioned. APRIL 83 I had the privilege of visiting and hearing the story of one of that charming type, the French old maid. I sat in her kitchen whilst her bonne prepared the Sunday dinner for herself, an adopted child, and the inevitable male friend, be he doctor, notary, or priest. The soup was maigre and economical : — One large onion cut up and fried in butter in a saucepan over a very slow fire till a nice yellow-brown. Then the saucepan filled up with boiling water from a kettle, and allowed to cook half an hour. Then strained, and a sufficient quantity of Vermi- celli added. Cook for fifteen or twenty minutes more, and serve. A chicken, prepared as before described, was roasted for an hour and a half before a slow wood fire , basted with butter all the time, and served with the butter round it as gravy. The salad was carefully picked young Watercress (never used by itself for salads in England), with oil and vinegar, and a hard-boiled egg cut into small quarters laid on the top. (Few know that Water cress can be grown in ordinary garden soil, in half-shade, if sown every spring.) The wine was good, and the sweets came from the pastry-cook. During our short stay in France I saw several gardens, but nothing at all interesting. As we drove through the villages I noticed specimens of a white variety of Iberis gibraltarica (Candytuft) grown in pots, carefully pruned and cared for, standing in the windows of the cottages. Managed in this way, it made a very charming spring pot-plant. I have never seen it so treated in England. It is not quite hardy. I brought home cuttings, but they all died. I have now several plants which I have grown from seed. From their appearance I do not think they will flower well till they are two or three years old ; they will want hard cutting back directly after flowering. It was early in the year, and no sort of spring o2 84 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN gardening was aimed at in the large bare beds cut in rather coarse grass. I think turf is overdone in England ; but why it should be attempted at all where it grows badly, and is rarely successful, I cannot imagine. How infinitely prettier it would be to have earth planted with shrubs and low-growing, creeping plants, with grass paths ! The shrubs that I saw in France seemed to me as much over- pruned — indeed stiffly cut back in spring — as they are under-pruned in England. April Wth. — We returned home last night. At this time of year how a week or ten days changes the growth in one's garden ! I must confess that sometimes, coming home after dark, I have taken a hand-candle to inspect some special favourite.