FLOWER-BEDS 137 



love or appreciation of flowers, but it is probably 

 nearer to the truth to say that no person is wholly 

 lacking in this respect. Even those persons who 

 declare that they care nothing for flowers, are 

 generally deceived by their dislike of flower-beds 

 and the conventional methods of flower-growing. 

 I know many people who stoutly deny any liking 

 for flowers, but who, nevertheless, are rejoiced 

 with the blossoming of the orchards and the pur- 

 ple bloom of the clover fields. The fault is not 

 so much with the persons themselves as with the 

 methods of growing and displaying the flowers. 



The greatest fault with our flower-growing is 

 the stinginess of it. We grow our flowers as if 

 they were the choicest rarities, to be coddled in a 

 hotbed or under a bell -jar, and then to be ex- 

 hibited as single specimens in some little pinched 

 and ridiculous hole cut in the turf, or perched 

 upon an ant-hill which some gardener has labo- 

 riously heaped upon a lawn. Nature, on the other 

 hand, grows her flowers in the most luxurious 

 abandon, and one can pick an armful without 

 offense. She grows her flowers in earnest, as a 

 man grows a crop of corn. One can revel in the 

 color and the fragrance, and be satisfied. 



The next fault with our flower-growing is the 

 flower-bed. Nature has no time to make flower- 

 beds; she is busy growing flowers. And, then, 

 if she were given to flower-beds, the whole 

 effect would be lost, for she could no longer be 



