176 GA RDEN- CRA FT. 



and charming writer, E. V. B., in " Days and Hours 

 in a Garden " (p. 125), " Long experience has taught 

 me to have nothing to do with principles in the 

 garden. Little else than a feeling of entire sym- 

 pathy with the diverse characters of your plants and 

 flowers is needed for * Art in a Garden.' If sym- 

 pathy be there, all the rest comes naturally enough." 

 Or to put this thought in Temple's words, "The 

 success is wholly in the gardener." 



If a garden grow flowers in abundance, there 

 is success, and one may proceed to frame a garden 

 after approved " codes of taste " and fail in this, or 

 one may prefer unaccepted methods and find success 

 beyond one's fondest dreams. "All is fine that is 

 fit " is a good garden motto ; and what an eclectic 

 principle is this ! How many kinds of style it 

 allows, justifies, and guards ! the simplest way or 

 the most ornate ; the fanciful or the sweet austere ; 

 the intricate and complex, or the coy and uncon- 

 strained. Take it as true as Gospel that there is 

 danger in the use of ornament danger of excess- 

 take it as equally true that there is an intrinsic and 

 superior value in moderation, and yet the born 

 gardener shall find more paths, old and new, that 

 lead to Beauty in a plot of garden-ground than the 

 modern stylist dreams of. 



The art of gardening may now be known of all 

 men. Gardening is no longer a merely princely 

 diversion requiring thirty wide acres for its display. 

 Everyone who can, now lives in the country, where 

 he is bound to have a garden ; and I repeat what I 



