germinate, and then you have to wait a year or two before you get a
typical blossom. The growers hurry matters by cutting a very tiny bud
from the first sprout and splicing that on to an older stock. One of
the advantages of having your roses grown from seed and on their own
stocks would be that they could not produce wild suckers.

I have just seen a wonderful grove of Aquilegias, the glorified
columbine which has the centre of one colour and the outside petals of
another--sulphur with mauve or yellow with pink, and many other
varieties. The nucleus was grown from shop seed and the rest from the
seed of the first-comers. The only thing to choose between them is
that the new ones have produced a least one variety not represented in
the first batch. You may be sure that I am going to get some seed
from here and raise some Aquilegias for myself. Good reader, go thou
and do likewise.

G.G. DESMOND.




MIDSUMMER MADNESS.


We had come, "3.7" and I, to the Boundary, a white, unpaved road which
winds across the full width of Wimbledon Common, from the old Roman
camp to the windmill. Simultaneously we cried a halt, I because I
never cross that road without some hesitation, he because he wanted to
get out of the folding go-cart in which he had been riding and turn
it, with the aid of a small piece of string and a big piece of