APRIL FIRST.-All Fool's Day! But in my Kalendar of Delights I can take no notice of such a day!

My flowers for April are, first from "The Compleat Gard'ner" (1649): "An Infinite number of Flowers, as Anemonies, Ranunculus's or Crow-foots, Imperials, Narcissus, Prim Roses, Violets, Hepatica's, both red and pale blue, and about the end of the month we have fair Tulips."

Bacon gives us "In Aprill follow The Double White Violet; The Wall-flower; The Stock-Gilly-Flower; The Couslip; Flour-De-lices, and Lillies of all Natures; Rosemary Flowers; The Tulippa; The Double Piony; The Pale Daffadill; The French Honey-Suckle; The CherryTree in Blossome; The Dammasin; and Plum-Trees in Blossome; The White-Thorne in leafe; The Lelacke Tree."

I wonder why these old writers do not keep to the same names for flowers? Here Bacon speaks of a << wall-flower" and "The Stock-Gilly-Flower," while they are one and the self-same flower!

Among the Romans the feast of Venus was held on this day, because she is "the figurative Emblem of the reproductive power inherent in nature. inherent in nature. . . . The Rose, the Myrtle, and the Apple were sacred to her; and among birds, the Dove, the Swan, and the Sparrow."

"The Seeds of god-like power are in us still;
Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we will."

-MATT. ARNOLD.

APRIL SECOND.

"Where that Aprilis blows her horn,
It is both good for hay and corn,
A dry time is for sowing best,
Before the garden's richly drest
In all the pomp of vernal flowers;
Then comes the hasty April showers,
Which freshen each enamelled way,
The painted carpet of the lovely May."

"Now the winter's gloom

Hath wept itself in April showers away.”

"Oh, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England-now!"

-BROWNING.

"Get into thy hopyard with plentie of poles,
Amongst these same hillocks devide them by doles.
Three poles to a hillock (I pas not how long)
Shall yeeld thee more profit, set deeplie and strong.'

-TUSSER, 1573.

APRIL THIRD.-The children have been making daisy chains. There are no cowslips yet awhile for cowslip balls, and as they, like their elders, are in search of a new sensation, a fresh idea, I have been reading to them out of an old book. I bade them first take "a small branch or long spray of the white-thorn, with all its spines uninjured, and on its alternate thorns, a white and a blue violet, plucked from their stalks, are stuck upright in succession, until the thorns are covered, and when placed in a flower-pot of moss, has perfectly the appearance of a beautiful vernal flowering dwarf shrub, and as long as it remains fresh, is an object of surprise and delight." I think this is a pretty idea and worthy of note. I have just been teaching the children to make "Aunt Sallies" out of great white daisies. You chip the white petals round the centre for the frill of a white cap, leaving four petals for strings at the bottom. Then with a brush you paint in eyes, nose, and mouth on the yellow centre, and you have a wonderful miniature face of an old woman. Let any child try and they are bound to be charmed with the result. Later on the big garden daisies make splendid Aunt Sallies. Daisy chains have been a joy for all time, and cowslip balls. I can remember now the joy of my first cowslip ball, only I was always sorry to pull the dear flowers to pieces. How many of us can say that youth with all its joys is with us still?