Note 12 — Chapter I

Time does much for a garden. There is a story of an American plutocrat's visit to Oxford. On his tour of the Colleges nothing struck him so much as the velvety turf of some of the quadrangles. He asked for the gardener, and made minute enquiries as to the method of laying down and maintaining the grass. "That's all, is it?" he exclaimed, when the process had been carefully described. "Yes, sir," replied the gardener with a twinkle in his eye, "That's all, but we generally leave it three or four centuries to settle down!"