6 APRIL 1929, Page 14

GARDENERS' DOGGEREL.

Here are two doggerel couplets, translated from the German, giving rules for the gardener's observance about this date. One gardener, at any rate, who has faithfully observed the first of them for years, both in planting out and in pruning, concludes that they apply as usefully to gardens in England as to gardeni in Baden :— "Your roses you prune

at the cuckoo's first tune"

is the first and the most directly useul. The second runs

" When the ash is green No frost is seen."

The maker of this must surely have quite forgotten the traditional German fear of the Festival of the three Icemen in the second week of May All the same, the ash, which is very susceptible to frost, as we often see in autumn, is very