84 A GARDEN DIARY 



the contrary, for utilitarian reasons of such beauty 

 as Nature had originally endowed them with. 

 Yet, under the influence of a little kindly sun- 

 shine, how they still gleam, those poor plots ; 

 how the few green things left in them manage 

 to prink themselves out, and to respond genially 

 to that genial greeting! "And is it not slightly 

 discreditable," I reflected, " that we, who call 

 ourselves gardeners, and have deliberately taken 

 in hand similar, often much better plots, specially 

 with an eye to beautifying them, should again 

 and again completely fail in doing so ; should 

 again and again spend thought, time, money, 

 and the sweat of the brow chiefly of other 

 people's brows and all that they should, as 

 often as not, be rather worse at the end than 

 at the beginning?" 



The truth is that this business of " beautify- 

 ing," into which many of us have recklessly 

 plunged, is a very much more difficult and a 

 very much more delicate operation than we are 

 prepared to admit. To the truly discerning, 

 the truly nature-loving eye, the smallest scrap 

 of plant-producing ground, the homeliest corner 

 of earth " long heath, brown furze, anything " 

 has potentialities of beauty and interest which 

 even the best gardener rarely develops as 

 they might, and ought to be developed. It 

 is not merely that individually our powers are 

 weak, our taste poor, our ignorance great, our 



