PLACE IN CIVILIZATION 5 



so that he who runs may read, the great and 

 universal obHgation of stewardship, wherein 

 each one of us shares, to promote and foster this 

 art in all its branches. 



The strongest of all instincts presumably is 

 the instinct of self-preservation — which is the 

 reason that the instinct to grow things lies so 

 deep in the human heart; for the latter is actu- 

 ally merely an extension of the former. Some 

 will say that they lack it altogether, I know; 

 and I grant at once that they seem to. But of 

 these — and to them — let me add that it has 

 never been my experience to find anyone lack- 

 ing it wholly, once they are given a chance to 

 know what a garden really can be, and can do 

 for them and to them as well as to the world in 

 which they live and have their being. It is the 

 pressure of other things that makes them im- 

 patient of Nature's slow processes, or total un- 

 f amiliarity with the work, or misconception gen- 

 erally that accounts for indifference. Interest 

 never resists the appeal of the miracles of every- 

 day in the garden, when this has an opportunity 

 to assert itself. 



The stewardship of which I have spoken de- 

 mands that it be given this opportunity; and 

 the active exercise of stewardship begins with 

 the establishment of every home, whether it is 



