Grafting and the various ways of propagating plants by cuttings, slips, etc., are described or alluded to with equal accuracy; also the mischief done by weeds, blights, frosts, and other enemies of the husbandman and horticulturist. He writes on all these matters as we might expect him to have done in his last years at Stratford, after he had had actual experience in the management of a large garden at New Place and in farming operations on other lands he had bought in the neighborhood; but all these passages, like the one quoted from _Richard II._, were written long before he had a garden of his own. They were reminiscences of his observation as a boy, not the results of his experience as a country gentleman. NOTES Abbreviations, except a few of the most familiar, have been avoided in the Notes, as in other parts of the book. The references to act, scene, and line in the quotations from Shakespeare are added for the convenience of the reader or student, who may sometimes wish to refer to the context. The line-numbers are those of the "Globe" edition, which vary from those of my edition only in scenes that are wholly or partly in _prose_. The numbers appended to names of authors (as in the note on page 22, for example) are the dates of their birth and death. An interrogation-mark after a date (as in the note on page 114) indicates that it is uncertain. I have not thought it necessary to insert biographical notes concerning well-known authors, like Spenser, Milton, etc. NOTES [Illustration] =Page 3.=--_Michael Drayton._ He was born in Warwickshire in 1563. Of his personal history very little is known. His most famous work, the _Poly-Olbion_ (or _Polyolbion_, as it is often printed), is a poem of about 30,000 lines, the subject of which, as he himself states it, is "a chorographical description of all the tracts, rivers, mountains, forests, and other parts of this renowned Isle of Great Britain; with intermixture of the most remarkable stories, antiquities, wonders, etc., of the same." His _Ballad of Agincourt_ (see _Tales from English History_, p. 39) has been called "the most perfect and patriotic of English ballads." Drayton was made poet-laureate in 1626. He died in 1631, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. =Page 4.=--_Her Bear._ The badge of the Earls of Warwick. _Wilmcote._ A small village about three miles from Stratford-on-Avon. The name is also written _Wilmecote_, and _Wilnecote_; and in old documents, _Wilmcott_, _Wincott_, etc. It is probably the _Wincot_ of _The Taming of the Shrew_ (ind. 2. 23) and the _Woncot_ of _2 Henry IV._ (v. 1. 42). _Dugdale._ Sir William Dugdale (1605-1686), one of the most learned of English antiquaries. His _Antiquities of Warwickshire_ (1656) is said to have been the result of twenty years' laborious research. =Page 7.=--_Beauchamp._ Pronounced _Beech'-am_.