PREFACE xv 



with letters as with prefaces, and by which the last 

 word is wont to be the most important, a word must 

 be said for the Chief Toiler of the garden, in whose 

 hands lies the responsibility of success or failure. Per- 

 haps there may not be many who would choose a gardener 

 on such lines as these : not many would, so to speak, take 

 the candidate into the garden, and pointing to a cabbage 

 or a currant bush, give the order thus ' Dig a hole and 

 plant that currant head downwards ' / and if forthwith 

 the man did as he was told without a word, engage 

 him on the spot! Yet I believe such imperiousness 

 does exist, and then, is fatal to the garden. We 

 may love dearly our flowers ; we may know (or think 

 we know), everything about them, and call them all 

 by their names. We may believe we are Master, and 

 that things being done entirely under our own directions 

 everything will grow, and all will be well. Yet never- 

 theless nothing will grow, nothing will be well unless 

 the gardener is also in a sense, on his side, master. 

 When his worth is ascertained, give him a free hand 

 over all affairs which come specially under his control. 



