THE GARDEN IN TOWN 



far beyond the reach of any hen. The cat is indeed an enemy. 

 If the gardener is clever enough, he can frustrate the invader 

 and make his yard a very Gibraltar against feline attempts; 

 if he is not, he will have but a meagre garden. 



In the matter of planting, there are breakers ahead. Far 

 more than the country -place garden does that in the city yard 

 need careful consideration, and rarely does it get it. There 

 is so small a space wherein to make mistakes, and mistakes, 

 when made, are so embarrassingly apparent! The city gar- 

 dener sows in hope the easy flowers which will bloom for any 

 one in the country; but these are usually those that need full 

 sunshine, which, if they grow at all, are brown and depressed 

 when he returns in the autumn. His roses during the long 

 winter months are clad in straw or wrapped in unhandsome 

 burlap, princesses in disguise, perhaps, but so completely dis- 

 guised that there is little joy in their presence; while at the 

 time when he most craves a bit of color and a breath of the 

 springtime loveliness in his little garden, it shows only narrow 

 plots of bare soil, brown and uninspiring, with no glimpse 

 whatever of the good, gigantic smile that brown earth ought 

 to wear. It is undeniably difficult for the city gardener. 



But between what is difficult and what is impossible is a 

 difference, slight, but certain the difference between a peri- 

 lous harbor and no harbor at all; and even city gardening may 

 be managed well enough if one only faces squarely existing 

 conditions, looks carefully at every obstacle to determine 

 whether it is best to climb over or walk around it. As Brown- 

 ing puts it, 



"The common problem . . . 

 Is not to fancy what were fair in life, 

 Provided it could be but, finding first 

 What may be, then find how to make it fair 

 Up to our means: a very different thing." 



31 



