In the Garden
Fewer birds, more butterflies, fewer rare shrubs, more pests, seem to be the most contradictory results of the severe winter. The forty degrees of frost that killed all cistus, most rock-roses, many ceanothus and other fine shrubs had no effect on bulbs of lilium auretum, except to make them, if anything, more vigorous, or on gladioli left in the open ground. Daffodils were never more splendid; tulips had a clean strength and brightness with- out a trace of disease. Carrots, on the other hand, have germi- nated badly, green crops are invaded by successive armies of flea- beetle, leather jacket and maggot. Yet May 23rd was, in my experience, a record date for the first new potatoes, grown entirely without protection, in open ground.
H. E. BATES.
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