whole deep bed, but it is quite charming, the cornflower, dark blue, light blue, red and white, and every variety of Shirley poppy, intermixed. We were just able to squeeze in a border of Mrs. Sinkins, ageratum and mauve violas.

Under one window of the house flourish the Canterbury bells, purple, mauve, pink and white, and. we have also put in July lilies. The Canterbury bells need much attention, like pansies, the daily nipping off of withered flowers. Under another window there is a huge clump of red penstemmon, a red of astonishing richness, accompanied by a small army of gladiola.

Flame-coloured antirrhinums and dark blue larkspur fill one corner, and godetia, clarkia, stocks, and many-coloured sweetwilliams make a very cheery little happy family.

My violets are a dream. I have always wanted to grow them, but was under the impression that violets were very fussy and particular as to where and how they lived; so we fussed and put patches of them in every aspect and every position. They have all done uncommonly well in size, in scent, and in colour; but, strange to say, after all our fussing, the ones that were the sweetest, largest and altogether the finest were those dropped by accident at the foot of the dustbin, in a very bleak corner.

The rose garden, with its carpet of pansies, is exquisite. We have many old favourites, such as Hugh Dickson, General McArthur, Caroline Testout, Rayon d'Or, Madame Chatenay, Karl Druschki, Irish Elegance, Gloire de Dijon, June Bridal Rose, General Jacqueminot, Ulrich Brunner, Mr. Mawley, H. A. Richardson, La France, and many others. I believe in former days. gardeners let the dead blossoms remain on the tree, but John Evelyn' is very emphatic on the subject, and strenuously removes every dead blossom. Certainly our roses have responded well.

I never cared for zinnias till one happy day I came upon a long border of them at the Country Club, and there and then I determined to have a long border at any cost. We procured the seeds and put them in boxes, but alas! as soon as they appeared we realised we must have a frame for them; so a happy thought struck one of us, and we went to visit a nurseryman and talked zinnias to him. He remained cold and unconvinced for a considerable time, but at last he became inspired to acquire zinnias for himself, but said he could not get any seed in town; then we produced our trump card and told him we had several boxes of seedlings, which we would share with him if he would put them in his greenhouse, all of which came to pass, but for some reason his did not prosper, and ours were a most delightful sight, with a background of hollyhocks and in the front antirrhinums.

A rather shabby plot of grass we have turned into a birds' garden. 'John Evelyn' being a carpenter as well as a gardener,

erected a rustic stand, about 4 feet high, and placed a large, shallow earthenware pan on it, which we keep filled with water. We trained periwinkle all up the stand and finally planted many foxgloves all round it. It is the prettiest sight to see swarms of birds bathing and sitting all round the rim, watching their friends bathe and waiting impatiently for their turn, or sitting in rows on the fence squabbling. Of course, cats were a nuisance, but we hit on a quite nice little expedient. We kept a revolving spray at the foot of the stand, and every cat seemed to want to smell it and examine it. As soon as it had its nose well over the spray we turned the tap on, and then, to use an Americanism, 'you couldn't see his heels for dust.'

The birds have become so tame and enjoy the bath so much that if by an oversight the bath, through much vigorous bathing, becomes empty, they will come to our windows and scream at us, till, for sheer peace' sake, we have to go out and fill it up. It always has to be filled at least twice a day. One specially amusing little fellow-a wild canary-follows us about as we hose the garden, darting in and out of the spray screaming with delight.

I have never seen humming-birds use the bath. They are very shy, easily frightened, though they will sometimes come and hover round one if one keeps very still. Sweet-peas are their special joy, and I do not know which are the more dainty and pretty, sweet peas or tiny birds with their iridescent heads and breasts. Certainly the sweet-peas are very lovely, and we were fortunate in getting patches of Wedgewood, Thomas Stevenson, Nora Unwin, Fair Lady, Giant Attraction, Gladys, Jack Cornwall, and Mascot Scarlet.

Beyond the sweet-peas I have placed the columbines, a brave show. The long-spurred white ones are very fine, also the yellow chrysantha and the glandulosa. A patch of lupins, purple, yellow and pink, fills up the bed, and one purple lupin has sixty spikes.

The small boys of the neighbourhood are rather a trial. Presumably having heard their elders scoff at our struggles with the 'dumping ground,' they considered it necessary to annoy us. Then one day an inspiration (not happy) came to us. I was, through a long illness, obliged to lie all day by the open window. Being anxious to make a collection of wild flowers for painting, we pressed the small boys into our service, and asked them to bring me every kind of wild flower (we vainly hoped to keep them happy and busy and away from our garden in the holidays). Then our troubles began. All day long hordes of infants rolled up carrying hot little bunches of flowers in their hot little fists, I am afraid the reason being that as a reward I kept supplies of apples and candies always beside me, and what boy can resist either apples or candy? However, we became absolutely snowed

under with flowers; every jar, every vase, basin, jampot, was used to hold these flowers; and we looked like a Harvest Thanksgiving. In vain we implored them to desist; they would have none of it. Then another brain-wave came to me, and I cut off all supplies of apples and candy; automatically the stream of infants ceased. Just one baby of five tried valiantly to keep in touch with the supplies, and he would wander in with flowers (not wild) suspiciously familiar; then I watched the gentleman a few hours later come deliberately into our garden, cull a very precious and treasured Reckitt's blue campanula, and march up with innocent and cherubic face to our door and hand me, most unblushingly, my own flower. I remarked severely he must not do it again: it was very naughty. He looked surprised and pained-then a beaming smile, and should he bring me some more?

Our wild flower garden is a source of great interest and pleasure, for the wild flowers on the island are lovely. In the spring one could imagine that large quantities of paint had been poured generously on the ground, all colours and in most unexpected places. So far I have only managed to collect a few for a wild garden, such as the beautiful dogtooth violet, wild hyacinth -quite different from the English variety-yellow violet, double celandine, lady slipper orchid, wild cyclamen, blue grass, trilium, orange lily and a few others. The dogtooth violet, or lily, is a lovely star-like flower, with long, tapering white petals tinged with pink underneath, very yellow stamens, and a long, serpentine-like stem merging from green to pink or mauve. The leaves are curious, long, bright glossy-green, the first year quite plain, the second year faint white zigzag markings; the third year the markings are dark brown. They are difficult to transplant, but it can be done by digging deep and wide and taking up plenty of soil.

As we have had wonderful success with our flowers, so have we also had with our vegetables and fruit. When we first started in October it looked all hopeless, but the following year, on April 1, we had our first dish of peas and potatoes. And we had peas up to the middle of October, beautiful peas, huge pods looking like green wax. Then we grew broad beans, scarlet runners, carrots, onions, spinach, green corn, marrows, cucumbers, potatoes and tomatoes. The tomatoes were a triumph. We managed to get twelve sickly-looking young plants. Everyone predicted failure and sorrow; as they grew bigger and more healthy everyone came with much advice as to what we ought to do, and if we did not do it, nothing but failure and sorrow faced us. As everyone had a different method, we pursued our own peaceful course, and everyone came and shook pessimistic heads over us. The result of following our own ideas was 175 lbs. of

tomatoes from twelve plants, and we nearly killed ourselves bottling what we did not consume.

The same thing happened with our marrows. We planted a threepenny packet of seed, and after placing the young seedlings in the ground quite flat, we let them wander as they chose and did not interfere with them. We got so many marrows, we did not know what to do with them. We cut them very young, about 4 inches long. They are delicious baked with butter, pepper and salt. A few we allowed to grow big for winter use.

One of the drawbacks to a garden in the country is that one generally grows far more than one needs, and as other people also grow their own vegetables, they are not at all grateful for a present of a basket of peas, beans, or tomatoes, or all three. We kept an account of what the garden produced that first year in fruit and vegetables, and it yielded 40l. worth at market prices.

We gather our vegetables much earlier than most people, such as peas, beans, beets, marrows and carrots; and speaking of carrots reminds me of a nice old man who, hearing when I was ill that I was fond of very young carrots, proceeded, out of gratitude to' John Evelyn' for her goodness to his boy when he was ill -for, by the way, she is a nurse as well as carpenter and gardener -to shower bunches of carrots on us till we really got to hate them, almost as embarrassing as the babies' wild flowers.

I have never seen the milk flow out of lettuces as it does out of ours. One has to be careful not to let it stain one's clothes, and the smell fills the whole house.

My impression is that if one is really fond of flowers and of gardening the flowers know and respond. As an instance of this, when I first bought the bungalow I was very depressed over the state of the garden, so we went to a big nurseryman, a man who had a big staff of men to go out and do up gardens. He came and looked at our garden and was most discouraging. However, he said he would send a man to dig it well up to start with. The man came, and after watching him for a whole day we came to the conclusion that to employ him longer would spell ruin, so we dismissed him and did the work ourselves.

Our nurseryman was very hurt, so to appease him we bought some of his hyacinth bulbs and potted them. Next spring he rode over to see how the garden was doing, in the hope evidently that we would have to climb down and go to him for help. Having surveyed our domain and having had reluctant praise dragged out of him, John Evelyn' (rather maliciously) invited him to come in and see our hyacinths. He had evidently forgotten that we had bought them from him. His amazement was great, almost ludicrous, for here were the hyacinths three heads to a bulb, each head measuring 12 inches round. He asked where we had got

them from, and on learning he had sold them to us wanted to take them and exhibit them.

It seems to me that there is a difference in the one person who grows only for gain and the other person who grows the flowers and loves them like children.

As the day draws to a close and the sun, sinking in the west, floods the Pacific with liquid gold and scarlet, casting a warm red glow over my dear garden, I look around me, and the beautiful flowers, that at sunrise seemed so vivid and so striking, seem now in this evening light to be even more beautiful and deeper; and so, with happy, contented mind and peace in my heart, I enter my little bungalow, and with Mr. Pepys I say: 'And so to bed!'

MAUD BOND.