THE AMERICAN GARDEN 



as that very unsatisfying thing, a "gardener's 

 garden." 



Our ordinary American life is also too near 

 nature for the formal garden to come in between. 

 Unless our formal gardening is of some inexpen- 

 sive sort our modest dwelling-houses give us an 

 anti-climax, and there is no inexpensive sort 

 of formal gardening. Except in the far south 

 our American climate expatriates it. 



A very good practical rule would be for none 

 of us to venture upon such gardening until he is 

 well able to keep up an adequate greenhouse. 

 A formal garden without a greenhouse or two — 

 or three — is a glorious army on a war footing, 

 but without a base of supplies. It is largely his 

 greenhouses which make the public gardener 

 and the commercial florist so misleading an ex- 

 ample for the cottager to follow in his private 

 gardening. 



To be beautiful, formal gardening requires 



stately proportions. Without these it is almost 



certain to be petty and frivolous. In the tiny 



igardens of British and European peasants, it is 



{true, a certain formality of design is often prac- 



49 



