ed with the sun,
And with him rises weeping: these are flowers of
Middle summer".

The Bard of Avon laid his scene in Bohemia; but the context makes it
evident that the plants named were such as were growing in an English
cottager's garden in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Broadstone was the spot chosen by Messrs. Rivers Hill and Company for
the purpose of growing lavender for their perfume distilleries. It is an
ideal spot, where a large tract of heather land, on a portion of Lord
Wimborne's estate, rises in a series of undulations from Poole Harbour.
Although it is quite a new industry for Dorset, it has already proved of
great value in finding constant employment, and an employment as healthy
as it is constant, for a large number of men and women. Unfortunately,
perhaps, it is an industry which demands peculiar climatic conditions to
render it commercially profitable. A close proximity to the sea, and an
abundance of sunshine, give an aroma to the oil extracted from the
flowers that is lacking when lavender is grown inland.

The farm has its own distillery, where the oil essences are extracted
and tested. The lavender is planted during the winter months, and two
crops are harvested--the first in June or July, and the second in August
or September. The reaping is done by men, and the flowers are packed
into mats of about half a hundredweight each.

The fields are not entirely given over to the cultivation of lavender,
for peppermint, sweet balm, rosemary, elder, and the sweet-scented
violets are also grown here. In addition to the people occupied in the
fields a large number of women and girls are employed to weave the
wicker coverings for the bottles of scent, forwarded from this Dorset
flower farm to all parts of the world.

* * * * *

CHRISTCHURCH

The ancient borough of Christchurch, five miles from Bournemouth,
spreads itself over a mile of street on a promontory washed on one side
by the Dorset Stour, and on the other by the Wiltshire Avon. Just below
the town the two rivers unite, and make their way through mud-banks to
the English Channel. The town itself is not devoid of interest, although
the great attraction of the place is the old Priory church, one of the
finest churches of non-cathedral rank in the country, both with regard
to its size, and its value to students of architecture.

Christchurch was once included in the New Forest, the boundaries o