A GARDEN DIARY 19 



altogether from any attempts at modification, 

 which might lead to results so humiliating and 

 so disastrous ? 



There are however more encouraging omens. 

 Anyone who has observed how casual, how purely 

 accidental are many of the natural variations of 

 surface which nevertheless give us pleasure, has 

 a right to ask himself whether the spade may 

 not be allowed to produce in a few days what 

 sun, wind, rain, and similar agents can achieve 

 in a few years. I am inclined to think that it 

 may, only it must be a spade with eyes, and if 

 possible with a brain behind it, and both are 

 unusual with spades. In any case wisdom ex- 

 horts us to proceed very cautiously and modestly 

 with all such changes. To be sure that in the 

 first place they are called for, and in the second 

 that they will suit with the features of our ground, 

 and the scene in which it is set. Else, if we 

 neglect these precautions, we too may come to 

 swell the ranks of those who have made the very 

 words " landscape gardening " and " landscape 

 gardener " sounds of terror to all discriminating 

 and nature-loving ears. 



One of the least unsatisfactory ways of modify- 

 ing one's ground, and relieving its monotony, is, 

 it seems to me, the "glade." Glades may of 

 course be of many forms, and may suggest many 

 ideas. They may pierce through the dusky heart 

 of a wood, or they may lie nakedly and stonily 



