THE SIX OF SPADES. 141 



than a small garden, treeless and flowerless for two- 

 thirds of the year ? A garden, did I say ? a grass 

 plot the rather, diversified by patches of bare brown 

 earth, the work, it might be, of a school of moles who 

 were studying geometry beneath. 



I may be asked here, why assign eight months of 

 beauty to the garden on the rich man's terrace, and 

 only four to the garden on the poor man's lawn ? 

 The answer is, because when the garden is small, the 

 resources, as a rule, will be small also, restricting 

 the supply to those plants which flower during the 

 summer months. Bedded out in May, these will 

 attain their charms in July, and retain them probably 

 for the period named. But where the material is 

 unlimited and the culture skilled, the spring flowers 

 will be gay in March ; and on their removal, the 

 introduction of blooming and foliage plants, more 

 advanced than those which are grown where glass is 

 less abundant, will produce an immediate and effective 

 display. 



And chiefly, I would protest against the exclusive 

 appropriation of a small garden to that which may 

 be termed the summer system, not only because it 

 brings with it the miserable nakedness, the long, 

 dreary, dirty desolation, to which I have referred, 

 but withal a result yet more deplorable. It destroys 

 the sentiment, the teaching, the associations, the 

 memories, and the hopes, of which a garden should 

 be the haunt and home. Great poets have written 

 tender poesy upon the brightness and sweetness, the 

 grace and the peace, of a garden, as it used to be. 

 They rejoiced to watch, here in cool grot, or there 



