In My Garden I see that one garden critic warns
gardeners against a too rapid con- demnation of apparently dead bushes. The frost victims may be fewer than appearances suggest. You may say of certain shrubs, as of Kipling's Fuzzy Wuzzy, that they are " generally shamming when they're dead." There is one small device for testing the state of 'fife. A slight scratch with the nail of the thumb will reveal beneath the bark either brownness or a certain greenness, which respectively are good evidence of death or life. As to flowers, the most vigorous evidence of spring has been given by the species tulips which have anticipated by a wide interval the daffodils and seem to be unusually vigorous, especially the robust and precocious Kauffmann. The earliness and rather short stalks of most of the species, as opposed to the hybrids, make them
ideal for the rock garden. Let no one deny splendour and (before they "break ") the purity of colour of the Darwins, but it is a mistake to forget the species for the sake of the hybrids, whether in tulips or irises, and there is particular pleasure in earliness as such.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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