rilHE greatest gift of a garden is the restoration 

 * of the five senses. 



During the first year in the country I noticed but 

 few birds, the second year I saw a few more, but by 

 the fourth year the air, the tree tops, the thickets and 

 ground seemed teeming with bird life. " Where did 

 they all suddenly come from? " I asked myself. The 

 birds had always been there, but I hadn't the power 

 to see ; I had been made purblind by the city and 

 only gradually regained my power of sight. 



My ears, deafened by the ceaseless whir and din 

 of commerce, had lost the keenness which catches 

 the nuances of bird melody, and it was long before 

 I was aware of distinguishing the varying tones that 

 afterward meant joy, sorrow, loss or love, to me. 

 That hearing has now become so keen, there is no 

 bond of sleep so strong that the note of a strange 

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