OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES 



order, whose dwarfs are all clipped and braced 

 after the best pyramidal pattern, and I feel 

 somehow that he is a fashionist, that he re- 

 poses upon certain formulas beyond which he 

 does not think it necessary to explore. But 

 where I see, with an equal degree of attention, 

 irregularity and variety of treatment, — ten- 

 drils a-droop and fruit-spurs apparently neg- 

 lected, — I am not unfrequently impressed with 

 the belief that the cultivator is regardless of 

 old and patent truths, because their truth is 

 proven and because his eye and mind are on 

 the strain toward some new development. 



When a good, kind horticultural gentleman 

 takes me by the button-hole, and tells me by 

 the hour of what length it is necessary to cut 

 the new wood in order to insure a good start 

 for the buds at the base, and how the sap has 

 a tendency to flow strongest into the taller 

 shoots, and other such truisms, which have 

 been in the books these ten years, I listen re- 

 spectfully, but cannot help thinking,— "my 

 dear good sir, you will never set the river 

 a-fire." 



Nor indeed do we want the river set on fire ; 

 but we want progress. And all I have said 

 thus far is but preliminary to the truth on 

 which I wish to insist, — that a graduated 



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