MY OWN ACRE 



ever plan a lay-out for whose free swing your 

 limits are cramped. 



"Don't" ever, if you can help it, says another 

 of my old mistakes to me, let your acre lead 

 your guest to any point which can be departed 

 from only by retracing one's steps. Such neces- 

 sities involve a lapse — not to say collapse — of 

 interest, which makes for dulness and loss of 

 dignity. Lack what my own acre may, I have 

 it now so that by its alleys, lawns and contour 

 paths in garden and grove we can walk and walk 

 through every part of it without once meeting 

 our own tracks, and that is not all because of 

 the pleasant fact that the walks, where not 

 turfed, are covered with pine-straw, of which 

 each new September drops us a fresh harvest. 



A garden, we say, should never compel us to 

 go back the way we came; but in truth a garden 

 should never compel us to do anything. Its 

 don'ts should be laid solely on itseK. Those ap- 

 phcable to its master, mistress, or guests should 

 all be impossibihties, not requests. "Private 

 grounds, no crossing" — take that away, please, 

 wherever you can, and plant your margins so 



37 



