ire, climb on to a slippery stone, wrestle with a piece
of hoop-iron, some barbed wire and some pieces of furze, lift the gate up
by the bottom bar and wade through the rest of the quagmire carrying it on
your shoulder.

If you are riding like Lord Hugo you hook the fastening of the gate with
the handle of your crop and make your horse shunt slowly backwards by
applying the reverse clutch with your feet. As the gate refuses to give,
you are, of course, drawn gently over the animal's head until you tumble
into the bog like a man whose punt-pole is stuck in the bottom of the
stream.

That is why I like going down to Kew, where the Spring is tidy and
concentrated, and there is a squared map, just like France, at the
turnstile gate to direct you to the magnolia dump, and little notices
pointing you to the Temperate Houses, though this is really unnecessary,
because there are no licensed premises in the Gardens at Kew. All is quiet
and calm. You are not even compelled to leave the gravel-walks and tread on
the damp grass, unless you have a desire to go to the river's edge and see
how stiffly the tail of the Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND'S stone lion sticks out
on the further bank between the two peel towers from which his crossbowmen
contemplate the Surrey marshes.

I used to know a man who had mugged up all the trees and plants, so that
when you said to him, "What a funny juniper that is over there, with blue
peach-blossoms on it," he would reply, "You mean the _Pyrofoliata persica
corylus_," and explain how it was first introduced into England by JEREMY
TAYLOR in 1658. Then when you went up to look at the placard on the tree
you not only found that he was perfectly right, but obtained the additional
information that the wood was of a particularly hard and durable nature,
and only used for making the heads of croquet mallets and the seats on the
tops of motor omnibuses.

I like this plan of putting placards upon trees, and I think it might well
be carried out in the country too. There would be none of that standing
about in the wet then, and arguing whether the thing is a beech or an oak,
when all the time it is a horse-chestnut and laughing up its bark at you.

One must not forget either at Kew the great conservatories, though I do not
care for these so much because there are men in them watching to see that
you do not pick the cactuses or the palms to put in your button-hole; nor
the magnificent Pagoda, which accommodates th