THE AMERICAN GARDEN 



will a 'posed sun-dial be interesting enough when 

 it is arrived at to justify a special journey and 

 four kept-up paths which cut my beautiful grass- 

 plot into quarters ? " 



With that she changed her mind — a thing 

 the good gardener must often do — and ap- 

 pointed the dial to a place where one comes upon 

 it quite incidentally while moving from one 

 main feature of the grounds to another. It is 

 now a pleasing, mild surprise instead of a tame 

 fulfilment of a showy promise; pleasing, after all, 

 it must, however, be admitted, to the toy-loving 

 spirit, since the sun-dial has long been, and 

 henceforth ever will be, an utterly useless thing 

 in a garden, only true to art when it stands in an 

 old garden, a genuine historical survival of its 

 day of true utility. Only in such a case does 

 the sun-dial belong to the good morals of gar- 

 dening. But maybe this is an overstrict rule 

 for the majority of us who are much too fond 

 of embellishments and display — the rouge and 

 powder of high art. 



On the other hand, we go to quite as much 

 pains to say that though a garden may not lie 



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