CHAPTER THIRTY TWO 



THE GARDEN 



Awake O north wind ; and come thou south ; blow upon my garden that the 

 spices thereof may flow out. 



i AV1NG considered what changes are desirable in the conception 

 of the modern house to meet the real needs of the average 

 family, I next propose to deal with the garden in the same 

 way, and to try and indicate a few general principles which 

 should govern its design. The function of the garden is to 

 grow fruit and vegetables for the household, and also to provide 

 outdoor apartments for the use of the family in fine weather. This has 

 led to a rough division of the garden into kitchen garden and pleasure 

 garden, a distinction which implies there is no pleasure to be derived 

 from the contemplation of plants or trees which are otherwise useful. We 

 have already encountered this modern conception of beauty, allied solely 

 to uselessness in the house and its furnishing, and need not therefore be 

 surprised to find it arising again in the garden. 



If rose leaves, like cabbage leaves, were found to have culinary uses, it is 

 probable that the rose would soon be deposed from its position as queen of 

 the flowers. In the kitchen garden one finds so many plants which have lost 

 caste, as it were, by daring to be useful, and the scarlet runner would probably 

 be as much admired as the scarlet geranium, were it not for the uses of its 

 slender pods. The grey-green foliage and great thistle-like heads of the 

 globe artichoke, the mimic forest of the asparagus bed, and the quaint 

 inflorescence of the onion have each a distinctive beauty of their own which 

 would be more widely recognised if these plants were not used for food. 



But if for the sake of convenience we adopt this rough division of the 

 garden into kitchen and pleasure garden, it may be concluded that for the 

 cottager the kitchen garden alone is the most appropriate, including in its 

 borders roses, lilies, and perennial flowers, with a background of cabbages, 

 potatoes and other vegetables. Many old cottage gardens which are no 

 more than this are to be seen in our villages, and show the possibilities of 

 homely beauty which belong to such a union of use and beauty in the garden, 

 and such a garden, worked in the spare time of its owner with a rough and 

 ready lore which is his traditional inheritance, will be profitable as well as 

 pleasant. But if we take a step from the cottage to the smaller type of 

 suburban or country house, we shall often find its occupants have little 

 knowledge of gardening. Under the specialising influence of modern civili- 

 sation they have lost the instinct for cultivating the soil, and they have 

 neither the time, knowledge, nor inclination to grow their own vegetables 

 and flowers. 



" He who looks at my garden," says Emerson, " may see that I have 

 another garden." The proper cultivation of the garden demands a consider- 

 able degree of leisure and thought, more than the man of affairs will usually 

 be able to give it. And so the limited means of the dweller in the small 

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