MAY MORNS 



with lightness of heart, with teeming hopefulness. We May 

 have laboured, and we begin to see some result from our 

 work. There have been gloomy days, and irksome tasks ; 

 but now there is sunshine, and young leaves, and blossom. 



It is my heartfelt wish that the amateur should drink 

 deeply of May's garden joys. They are abundant, they 

 are rich. They hearten him not only for garden en- 

 joyments, but for the stern labours of life. I do not, 

 however, want him to join the Lotus-eaters. I do not wish 

 to see complacency steal too deeply into his being, and 

 tell him that he may now rest content, for all has been 

 done that need be done. The attitude which I want him 

 to assume is that of the Marathon runner who, having 

 breasted the hills, forced his way through the brake, and 

 found himself at last on the level track which leads to 

 the goal, braces himself, lengthens his stride, and 

 resolutely makes good speed for home. Perhaps an 

 unsuspected obstacle obtrudes itself ; the runner is sur- 

 prised, but not dismayed. After all, the hills and the 

 brake are behind him — what is an odd ditch or fence ? 



The full garden is the slug's opportunity. He comes 

 forth ravenous. And the green aphis comes, and the 

 American blight, and the Bean dolphin, and the mole, 

 and the evening rabbit, and — yes, he always — the 

 sparrow. Amongst them they will bring all our labours 

 to naught if we let them. Let us relax our vigilance but 

 for a week, let us indulge our complacency for however 

 short a time, and an evil hand lays hold upon the 

 garden. We will not cease our efforts. The ball is at 

 our feet, and we will play it with all the vigour and the 

 skill that are in us. Blithely, cheerily, we will make 

 head against our garden foes. Our plants must live, 

 that is the great fact, and so their enemies must be 

 worried and harried unceasingly. 

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