GARDEN-CRAFT. 



external Nature's wa)s and means, and the first 

 simplicity of man's handling of them, carried to dis- 

 tinction. On one side we have Nature's "unpre- 

 meditated art " surpassed upon its own lines — 

 Nature's tardy efforts and common elementary traits 

 pushed to a masterpiece. On the other side is the 

 callow craft of Adam's " 'prentice han', " turned into 

 scrupulous nice-fingered Art, with forcing-pits, glass- 

 houses, patent manures, scientific propagation, and 

 the accredited rules and hoarded maxims of a host 

 of horticultural journals at its back. 



Or, to run still more upon fancy. A garden is 

 a place where these two whilom foes — Nature and 

 man — patch up a peace for the nonce. Outside 

 the garden precincts — in the furrowed field, in the 

 forest, the quarry, the mine, out upon the broad 

 seas — the feud still prevails that began as our first 

 parents found themselves on the wrong side of the 

 gate of Paradise. But 



"Here contest grows l3ut interchange of love" — 



here the old foes have struck a truce and are leagued 

 together in a kind of idyllic intimacy, as is witnessed 

 in their exchange of grace for grace, and the crown- 

 ing touch that each puts upon the other's efforts. 



The garden, I have said, is a sort of "be- 

 tweenity" — part heaven, part earth, in its sugges- 

 tions ; so, too, in its make-up is it part Nature, 

 part man : for neither can strictly say " I made the 

 garden " to disregard the other's share in it. True, 

 that behind all the contents of the place sits primal 



