i;8 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



A garden is pre-eminently a place to indulge in- 

 dividual taste. " Let us not be that fictitious thing," 

 says Madame Roland, " that can only exist by the 

 help of others soyons nous ! " So, regardless of the 

 doctors, let me say that the best general rule that I 

 can devise for garden-making is : put all the beauty 

 and delightsomeness you can into your garden, get 

 all the beauty and delight you can out of your 

 garden, never minding a little mad want of balance, 

 and think of proprieties afterwards ! Of course, 

 this is to " prove naething," but never mind if but 

 the garden enshrine beauty. To say this is by no 

 means to allow that the garden is the fit place for 

 indulging your love of the out-of-the-way ; not so, 

 yet a little sign of fresh motive, a touch of indi- 

 vidual technique, a token, however shyly displayed, 

 that you think for yourself is welcome in a garden. 

 Thus I know of a gardener who turned a section 

 of his grounds into a sort of huge bear-pit, not a 

 sunk-pit, but a mound that took the refuse soil from 

 the site of his new house hollowed out, and its 

 slopes set all round with Alpine and American 

 garden-plants, each variety finding the aspect it likes 

 best, and the proportion of light and shade that 

 suits its constitution. This is, of course, to " intrude 

 embankments " into a garden with a vengeance, yet 

 even Mr Robinson, if he saw it, would allow that, as 

 in love and war, your daring in gardening is justified 

 by its results, where, as George Herbert has it 



" Who shuts his hand, hath lost its gold ; 

 Who opens it, hath it twice told." 



