My New Zealand Garden 1 1 1 



our imaginary garden expert would like to under- 

 take the sprinkling of a few miles of country 

 when work in amateurs' gardens is slack. I 

 suppose farmers would have to be consulted 

 before the adoption of such a scheme, as seeds 

 might leave the hedges for fairer fields and 

 pastures new, and then our position might 

 resemble that of the man who is reported to 

 have introduced weeds into the rivers. They 

 say that he planted but one in a Cambridgeshire 

 river, and in time it spread and seriously inter- 

 fered with the boating. His name must be a 

 target for epithets ! 



Then, again, our neighbours' fowls might eat the 

 poisoned wheat, and so the stone intended to kill 

 two birds would include three, and our neighbours 

 might play tit for tat, for thoughtless deeds as well 

 as good and bad, often come home to roost, and 

 the whole transaction might engender strife and 

 hatred to ourselves, like the example before us in 

 the water-weed episode, which would be worse 

 than all. I am afraid that some of our farming 

 would shock a good bump of order, for farms 

 cannot be dressed and kept without plenty of 

 hands, and these take so much of the gilt off 

 the gingerbread that some families manage their 

 farms entirely themselves. Even gentlemen, 

 single-handed, do their own ploughing, milking, 



