74 FLOWER GARDENING 



ever has lost its usefulness or, it is discovered, 

 never did have any to speak of. 



This is not the spirit that goes in for numerical 

 satisfaction; numbers, and size, too, are of second- 

 ary importance. It is the spirit that, little by little, 

 room by room, equips a house with mellow old 

 furniture having the air not so much of a collec- 

 tion as of being an inseparable part of the home. 



How a garden may be accumulated can be no 

 better illustrated than by telling just how one has 

 thus been brought together. There came a day to 

 an old place in the country when the last vestige of 

 its golden garden age had disappeared. Not a 

 link, unless it was the purple lilac on the west side 

 of the house, bound the garden past with the pres- 

 ent. Nor was there enough of the present to boast 

 of a narrow bed of spring bulbs on the east side of 

 the house and on the western edge of the lawn a 

 short row of "golden glow" ; that was all that was 

 worth mentioning. 



More flowers were needed; at least as many as 

 in days long gone by, the waning glory of which 

 was well remembered. This was obvious one 

 spring when winter scarcely had departed. Then 

 came the thought : This is an old-fashioned house ; 

 why not an old-fashioned garden ? 



Very likely an impatient soul would have 

 endeavored to make an old-fashioned garden all at 

 once, had he not been a creature of circumstances; 

 forced to do what he could, not what he wanted to. 

 The which was a blessing, for circumstance taught 



