IV 



THE GARDEN IN TOWN 



PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS FOR CITY PLANTING 



In the country it is a simple matter to make a garden of a 

 sort. There Mother Nature is a complaisant, if occasionally 

 stern old deity, and the hampering petticoats of convention- 

 ality, as it were, are short enough to enable our worthy mother 

 to get about comfortably. She can do something in the gar- 

 den herself; and, despite the mistakes and misdemeanors of 

 gardeners, something is fairly sure to grow. Besides, she has 

 hordes of poor retainers over the fence ready to come in and 

 eat up the feast if the bidden guests are in the least reluctant. 



In the city it is different. Here a tall sky-scraper cuts off 

 the light, there gas-pipes poison the soil; and Mother Nature, 

 no longer complaisant, sits aloof and eyes the would-be gar- 

 dener coldly and askance. Such conditions are not of her 

 making. If he can get a garden out of them, he is welcome; 

 but as for her co-operation, she will wait and see, being quite 

 of the worthy Franklin's opinion that Heaven should help 

 only those who help themselves, assistance being thrown away 

 on the other kind. 



The city gardener has not only difficulties, but enemies. 

 First of these is the domestic cat. Now, the cat is to the 

 city gardener's endeavor as the uncloistered hen to the flower- 

 beds of the farmer's wife. He exhibits the same diabolical 

 interest in freshly sown seeds, in newly and most correctly 

 planted bulbs; also he is dowered with a cunning and craftiness 



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