THE almond is an emblem of haste, for its flowers appear before the leaves are ready. In the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah we read: "The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it". Allusions to the almond tree occur in other places in the Divine record. The presents sent by Israel to Joseph, in the second journey into Egypt, when Benjamin was taken, included "a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds". The almond was one of the subjects selected for the decoration of the golden candlestick of beaten work that was to be employed in the tabernacle and the symbol obtained special significance when the rod of Aaron, in the tabernacle of witness, brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds. These passages testify to the importance of the tree in Palestine, of which it is a native; and they suggest an inheritance of ideas from the further East, for the almond has a considerable range in Arabia and Persia. To be valued for its fruit by nomads little given to cultivation was a matter of necessity. But we are taken into the region of true poetry when it is perceived that the acceptance of the almond as a symbol under Divine sanction turns upon its flowering first amongst all the trees of the wood, and in such haste that it cannot wait to appear in its proper garments. To the Oriental mind, sensitive to imagery, and leaning to the ideal in the observation of nature, such simple facts are pregnant with deeper meanings than Western thought is capable of grasping without an effort.

But in these less fanciful lands the almond does not escape such honours as poets can bestow. Spenser crowns the great Arthur with the bloom of the immortal tree by means of a splendid figure:-

"Upon the top of all, his lofty crest-

A bunch of hairs discolour'd diversly,

With sprinkled pearl and gold full richly drest-

Did shake, and seem'd to dance for jollity.

Like to an almond-tree ymounted high

On top of green Selinis all alone,

With blossoms brave bedecked daintily,

Whose tender locks do tremble every one

At every little breath that under heaven is blown."

A good old Greek fable associates the tree with human sympathies in a more serious way than in the allegory of the East. Servius tells that Phyllis was changed by the gods into an almond tree as an eternal compensation for her desertion by her lover, Demophoon, which caused her death by grief. But when it was all too late to claim his bride, Demophoon returned, and the tree, leafless, flowerless, and forlorn, was shown him as the memorial of Phyllis. He clasped the tree in his arms, and thereupon it shot forth a new growth, and flowered gloriously-an emblem of the true love that even death cannot extinguish.

The almond is one of the best of garden trees, for when its early and delightful flowers have given us gladness, its green leaves appear, and render it a most cheerful occupant of the shrubbery. In the southern counties it is no uncommon event for the tree to produce a fair crop of fruit; but in less favoured parts the production of fruit is a rare occurrence.

In a few gardens in France and Belgium the almond is grown for its fruit, in which case the tender-shelled varieties are preferred, and the cultivation is the same as for the peach. In this country we occasionally meet with the almond as a fruit tree grown in pots in the orchard or peach-house, in which case a variety known as "The Princess" has the preference, because of its dwarf habit and readiness to fruit when young. The fruit of the almond, as it falls from the tree, may be likened to ugly, ill-favoured peaches; it has a downy coat of a dingy green colour, with a tinge of sad red ; and a thin layer of austere flesh covers the shell of the proper almond. The sorts are distinguished as sweet and bitter; but the climate has something to do with that part of the business.

For ordinary garden purposes the common almond, as grown in all good nurseries, is sufficient. For the cultivator of choice trees we have a double-flowered variety, called flore pleno; a variety with large rosy flowers, called grandiflora rosea; a variety with drooping or "weeping" branches, called pendula; and one with long leaves like a willow, which is appropriately named salicifolia.