THE TECHNICS OF GARDENING. 175 



style, form, ideal, and artistic interpretation of 

 Nature, and let us not say what Horace Walpole 

 whimpered forth of Temple's garden-enterprise : 

 " These are adventures of too hard achievement for 

 any common hands." Have we not seen that at the 

 close of Bacon's lessons in grand gardening he adds, 

 that the things thrown in "for state and magnificence" 

 are but nothing to the true pleasure of a garden ? 



The counsels of perfection are not to be slighted 

 because our ground is small. In gardening, as in 

 other matters, the true test of one's work is the 

 measure of one's possibilities. A small, trim garden, 

 like a sonnet, may contain the very soul of beauty. 

 A small garden may be as truly admirable as a per- 

 fect song or painting. 



Let it be our aim, then, to give to gardening all 

 the method and distinctness of which it is capable, 

 and admit no impediments. A garden not fifty yards 

 square, deftly handled, judiciously laid out, its beds 

 and walks suitably directed, will yield thrice the 

 opportunity for craft, thrice the scope for imaginative 

 endeavour that a two-acre " garden " of the pastoral- 

 farm order, such as is recommended of the faculty, 

 will yield. The very division of the ground into 

 proportionate parts, the varied levels obtained, the 

 framed vistas, the fitting architectural adjuncts, will 

 alone contribute an air of size and scale. As to 

 " codes of taste " (which are usually in matters of Art 

 only someone's opinions stated pompously), these 

 should not be allowed to baulk individual enterprise. 

 " Long experience," says that accomplished gardener 



