WHERE TO PLANT WHAT 



to man's felicity with least disturbance of na- 

 ture's freedom. 



Hence the initial question — a question which 

 every amateur gardener must answer for him- 

 self. How much subserviency of nature to art 

 and utility is really necessary to my own and 

 my friends' and neighbors' best delight ? For — 

 be not deceived — however enraptured of wild 

 nature you may be, you do and must require 

 of her some subserviency close about your own 

 dwelling. You cannot there persistently enjoy 

 the wolf and the panther, the muskrat, buzzard, 

 gopher, rattlesnake, poison-ivy and skunk in 

 full swing, as it were. How much, then, of na- 

 ture's subserviency does the range of your tastes 

 demand.'^ Also, how much will your purse 

 allow .^ For it is as true in gardening as in 

 statecraft that, your government being once 

 genuinely established, the more of it you have, 

 the more you must pay for it. In gardening, as 

 in government, the cost of the scheme is not in 

 proportion to the goodness or badness of its art, 

 but to its intensity. 



This is why the general and very sane incli- 



83 



