THE AMERICAN GARDEN 



we can contrive to adhere faithfully to the world- 

 wide laws of all true art, who knows but our very- 

 gardening may tend to correct more than one 

 shortcoming or excess in our national character ? 

 In our Northampton experiment it has been 

 our conviction from the beginning that for a 

 private garden to be what it should be — to 

 have a happy individuality — a countenance of 

 its own — one worthy to be its own — it must 

 in some practical way be the fruit of its house- 

 holder's own spirit and not merely of some hired 

 gardener's. If one can employ a landscape-archi- 

 tect, all very well; but the most of us cannot, 

 and after all, the true landscape-architect, the 

 artist gardener, works on this principle and 

 seeks to convey into every garden distinctively 

 the soul of the household for which it springs and 

 flowers. 



"Since when it grows and smells, I swear. 

 Not of itself but thee." 



Few American householders, however, have 

 any enthusiasm for this theory, which many 

 would call high-strung, and as we in Northamp- 

 ton cannot undertake to counsel and direct our 



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