LITTLE GARDENS 



This, like some of the other gardens, must 

 be laid off by permission of the kitchen powers, 

 for if they decide for clothes, the clothes must 

 have more space and their wearers will accustom 

 themselves to self-denial and hard-boiled shirts. 



It will be noted that of the flower-beds thus 

 far, or to be shown, all are of simple form. I 

 am opposed to " carpets," at least in yards, and 

 to pictures and mottoes, and to topiary and all 

 extravagances of artifice. There may, possibly, 

 be occasion for beds in the shape of harps, clocks, 

 flags, houses and lions, but such occasions can not 

 occur in the home garden whereof we treat. In 

 brief, I am opposed to difficulty for its own sake. 

 There may be virtue in the postulate of art for 

 art's sake, and acrobatics for hardship's sake, 

 and Maine laws for the land's sake, but it would 

 be an easier, pleasanter world if we applied our 

 strength to changing things for the better, in- 

 stead of making things to change, then changing 

 them to what they are now. Simple things are 

 the comprehensible, the agreeable, the perma- 

 nent, and the universe prefers them. Therefore, 

 let us not be above them In our gardens. 



Because of the smallness of space in a yard, 

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