see the clear white flower of the blackthorn come
out in the midst of the bitter easterly breezes! It is like a white
handkerchief beckoning to the sun to come. There will not be much more
frost; if the wind is bitter to-day, the sun is rapidly gaining power.
Probably, if a blackthorn bush were by any chance discovered in the
semi-parks or enclosures alluded to, it would at once be rooted out as
an accursed thing. The very brambles are superior; there is the flower,
the sweet berry, and afterwards the crimson leaves--three things in
succession.

What can the world produce equal to the June rose? The common briar, the
commonest of all, offers a flower which, whether in itself, or the
moment of its appearance at the juncture of all sweet summer things, or
its history and associations, is not to be approached by anything a
millionaire could purchase. The labourer casually gathers it as he goes
to his work in the field, and yet none of the rich families whose names
are synonymous with wealth can get anything to equal it if they ransack
the earth.

After these, fill every nook and corner with hazel, and make filbert
walks. Up and down such walks men strolled with rapiers by their sides
while our admirals were hammering at the Spaniards with culverin and
demi-cannon, and looked at the sun-dial and adjourned for a game at
bowls, wishing that they only had a chance to bowl shot instead of
peaceful wood. Fill in the corners with nut-trees, then, and make
filbert walks. All these are like old story books, and the old stories
are always best.

Still, there are others for variety, as the wild guelder rose, which
produces heavy bunches of red berries; dogwood, whose leaves when
frost-touched take deep colours; barberry, yielding a pleasantly acid
fruit; the wayfaring tree; not even forgetting the elder, but putting it
at the outside, because, though flowering, the scent is heavy, and
because the elder was believed of old time to possess some of the virtue
now attributed to the blue gum, and to neutralise malaria by its own
odour.

For colour add the wild broom and some furze. Those who have seen broom
in full flower, golden to the tip of every slender bough, cannot need
any persuasion, surely, to introduce it. Furze is specked with yellow
when the skies are dark and the storms sweep around, besides its prime
display. Let wild clematis climb wherever it will. Then laurels may come
after these, put somewhere by themselves, with