Experimental Woods I went for a wa!lc one recent winter
afternoon in the Pinenun, which is run by Kew Gardens in Bedgebury Park, near Goudhurst, the forrher seat of the Hope-Beresfords. It is a handsome piece of country. A series of lakes is surrounded by fold upon fold of inter-Weald hills, denuded before the war. Now Kew has planted here samples of pines and firs from -all parts of the world. Everything is labelled, and the public can wander there (" No Smoking "), enjoying the scene. The smell of the pines, the groupings and silhouettes, the gradations of green, and the surviving groves of rhododendrons, combine to make a scene that might be in the hills of Ceylon, or the seaboard side of the Rockies, rather than forty miles from London.
The day I went there was dry and cold after much rain. Frost had hardened the surface of things, but beneath that little tempering the sappy life could be seen and felt. As one trod the mossy footpath, the crisp touch of leather on hoar was followed by a miniature spurt of mois- ture, which came up with a fragrance from many modest herbs. The sun, at about three o'clock, was already going down behind a clump of pine pencilled against a smoky sky. Some duck were flying toward the west, honking as they flew, and the echo of their voices came back from the hill. Such moments can be caught by no literary device, not even if the penman be a Jefferies or a Hudson. I walked there, pausing and standing to stare because of my sheer inability to absorb the beauty of this wonderful solitude. My Corgi had no such inhibitions.
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