Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

A very good shading protection for small plants or delicate seedlings is to get the village blacksmith to make you some flower-pots — he will understand that — in per- forated zinc such as would be used for larder windows, &c. Beverse one of these over the plant, to protect it from sun and wind. The mention of blacksmith reminds me that the parings and raspings of horses' hoofs, which can be purchased for very little, put into a tub of water and allowed to decompose, make a very excellent and nourishing liquid manure. It should not be applied too strong. July 30th. — Two shrubs are now flowering in the garden which in this month of the year are valuable. One is called Clethra (Sweet Pepper Bush), mentioned in May for pot-cultivation, and useful, as it stands pulling about and changing ; it is quite hardy, but in dry places it is the better for watering when coming into flower. The other is called Pavia or ^Esculus parvifolia (Dwarf Horse Chestnut), a handsome and valuable hardy tree from North America. It does not grow fast, and takes little room; it has long spikes of flowers with bright pink stamens, is refined and sweet, and very pretty when gathered and wedged (see Appendix), though it would not look well in a room in any other way. I have had it several years, and it flowers every year ; its handsome and yet restrained growth is a great advantage in a small garden. AUGUST Gilbert White — The decline of vegetable culture in the Middle Ages— Preserving French Beans and Scarlet Eunners — Scotch gardens — Tropaolum speciosttm — Crimson-berried Elder — The coast of Sutherlandshire— The abuse of coarse Creepers. August 1st. — I cannot allow a summer to go by without referring to that dear old classic, Gilbert White's ' Natural History of Selborne.' Even now I do not quite know why I am so fond of these letters, except that they show strongly the observant eye and the genuine love of Nature which are so sympathetic to me. When I was young my mother gave me the book to read, and it bored me considerably. I thought the long speculations about the hibernating of birds — Swifts, Swallows, and others — so tiresome ; especially as I knew for sure that they migrated. I, almost a child, knew that. In those days I just panted for what was coming ; the saying c old days ' to me meant the present, which was older than the past and growing each day, as I grew myself, to greater maturity, I did not understand what people meant by referring to the days which were behind as ' the old days/ for they represented to me the youth of time. I longed to live the day after to-morrow before it came, if only that were possible. Everything new interested me ; I thought the world was moving so fast ; and now that my life is nearly over, it is as if nothing had happened. Progress is indeed like the old Greek pattern, a continuous un- broken line, but curling back and inwards for long periods 146 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN