22 EVERSLEY GARDENS 



gardener, not as an ordinary human being 

 of crumbling soil that breaks in the hand 

 like the shortest of pie-crust, giving promise 

 of all manner of lovely return next Summer 

 in blossom and growth. And the turf walls 

 were filled with stable litter, with fine cuttings 

 from the mowing machine off the croquet 

 ground, with rotten marrows and potatoes 

 that the pigs despised, and odds and ends 

 of all sorts, which, heaped up together with 

 burnings from the rubbish heap, made the 

 marrows run riot the next Summer. A garden 

 is such a blessed " glory hole," as our Irish 

 relations call the cupboard into which they 

 stuff all their rubbish. Nothing save actual 

 stones (and even they are useful in paths) 

 comes amiss to it ; for, saving and excepting 

 the said stones, everything can be burnt and 

 used again, to lighten heavy soil, and sweeten 

 that which otherwise might be sour. 



Why will not people remember that plants, 

 like human creatures, or dogs and cats, need 

 food suited to their various constitutions? 

 Yet a large proportion of garden owners seem 



