LITTLE GARDENS 



as little as possible, but if this involves so much 

 roiling of the water as to distress the fish, or if, 

 in the absence of fish, mosquitoes threaten to 

 breed in the stagnant pool before it rises to the 

 level of the overflow-pipe, it is better to let in 

 the water at once. Useless to consider the vic- 

 torias, with their immense leaves, on which an 

 adult may stand in safety, for those giants re- 

 quire either a tropical climate or a greenhouse. 

 Many of the floating plants, too, the water-hya- 

 cinth, water-poppy, water-snowflake and parrot's- 

 feather, spread so fast as to threaten the lives of 

 the lilies. 



If one lived in a town like Amsterdam, or 

 Syracuse, or Chicago, he could have a water- 

 garden that should be more than a stone basin, 

 and if he lived in no town at all, but near the 

 bank of a river that was clear and not subject to 

 spring freshets, he might more easily have the 

 like. It could be grown to lilies and lotus, or it 

 could be kept clear for bathing. In the ruins of 

 St. Pierre, the fated town of Martinique, I found 

 several marble-lined pools, one of them about 

 twenty feet long, and I asked myself why in our 

 equally superheated coast towns we could not 

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