My first gardener had been employed at the Manor, when I came, for very many years, and at the end of ten more he was obliged to resign through old age.  He had planted the poplars round the mill-pond in his earliest days, and, among other trees, the beautiful weeping wych-elm on the lawn behind the house.  The weeping effect he produced by beheading the tree when quite small and grafting it with a slip of the weeping variety, and the junction was still plainly visible.  It was a symmetrical and, especially when in bloom, a lovely tree, but as the blossoms died and scattered themselves all over the grass, they worried the methodical old man, and every spring he wished it had never been planted.  It had flourished amazingly, and we could comfortably find sitting room at tea for sixty or seventy people at a garden-party in its shade.

He was an excellent gardener, but did not care about novelties in flowers, though at one time he made a hobby of raising new kinds of potatoes.  His greatest success was the original Ashleaf variety, the stock of which he sold to Mr. Myatt for a guinea, and which was afterwards introduced to the public as “Myatt’s Early Ashleaf.”  It was one of the best potatoes ever grown, very early, and splendid in quality, and it was unfortunate that he parted with it so cheaply, though, of course, the purchaser of the first few tubers had no idea of its immense potential value, and possibly, like so many novelties, it might have proved a failure.  It is still in cultivation, though its constitution is impaired, like that of all potatoes of long standing.  Later on I shall have more to say about this unfortunate tendency to deterioration.

J.E. was one of my most reliable men, working for me, first as under-carter and afterwards as head carter, for, I think, altogether twenty-six years; he was well educated and a great reader, quiet and somewhat reserved, and though his humour did not lie on the surface, he could appreciate a joke.  My recollections of him, after his steadiness and reliability, are chiefly of his personal mishaps, for he was an unlucky man in this particular.

I was on my round one morning when I met a breathless carter-boy making for the village.  Asked where he was off to, “Please, sir,” he replied, “I be to fetch Master E. another pair of trowsers!” “Trousers,” said I; “what on earth for?” “Please, sir, the bull ha’ ripped ’em!” I hurried on, and soon saw that it was no laughing matter, for I found poor E. in a terrible plight of rags and tatters, sitting in a cart-shed in some outlying buildings, on a roller.  The cowman was standing by holding a Jersey bull.  The story was soon told.  The cowman, having to go into the yard, had asked E. to hold the bull a minute.  Unfortunately, the animal had only a halter on him, the cowman having omitted to bring the stick, with hook and swivel, to attach to the bull’s nose-ring.  No sooner was the cowman out of sight than the bull began to fret, and, turning upon E.,