Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

overflow from the fountain can be guided by small watercourses on to different beds. I have pockets of cement made at irregular intervals at the edges of the fountain to hold water-plants and such things, which then appear reflected on the surface of the water, not as they grow against a dark shrub or a group of Italian Canes of Bamboos, but against the blue sky above them — an end- less pleasure to those who notice such things. A piece of water, however small, and the sound of water falling from a small fountain, or even from a raised tap if the tank is near a wall, is such an added enjoyment to life on a hot summer's day, not to mention the infinite superiority for watering of having water that has been exposed to the sun and air. If not artificially fed, gold-fish live and breed healthily in these tanks. Water-plants, such as the Sweet-smelling Eush, the flowering Eush Butomus wnbellatus, the Water-lily, the Cape pond- weed Aponogeton, can all be grown in tanks if the plants are planted in baskets or hampers, not pots, and let down to the bottom. They give food for the fish, and keep them healthy ; a tank also serves as a dip for swallows on the wing, and as a breeding-place for the beautiful blue dragon-fly. To go back to the Dutch garden. I think at the corners of, or on each side of, the entrances there may be pots with plants in them, or balls of stone, or anything else in character with the rest of the stone or brick work, which should be formal and slightly constrained in design, as I consider all brickwork in a garden close to a house ought to be. If planted as I described, no two such gardens would ever be the least alike ; no law could bind them, and no wind destroy them. One of the most perfect ways of laying out a long flat piece of ground I have ever seen was in a garden in Salisbury. One long, very long, broad grass path, right 142 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN down the middle ; wide herbaceous borders on each side, with low plants in front and tall ones behind ; and at the back of these again, on each side, was the kitchen garden — Gooseberries, Currants, and Raspberries, and in between all the usual kitchen-garden vegetables ; beyond that was a small cinder-path, and then a wall on either side, shutting off the neighbours. One wall faced nearly north and the other nearly south. The long garden, stretching from the house eastward and westward, was ended by the river ; the tall spires of the cathedral towered behind the house. I have often thought that the same disposition of an oblong piece of ground would turn a depressing laurel-planted suburban garden into a thing of joy and beauty, even without the cathedral towers and the swift, clear, running river.