MIDWINTER GARDENS 



mating birds, greening swards, starting vio- 

 lets and all the early flowers loved of Shake- 

 speare, Milton, Shelley, Bryant and Tennyson, 

 has not felt that the resurrection of landscape 

 and garden owes at least half its glory to the 

 long trance of winter, and wished that dwellers 

 in Creole lands might see New England's First 

 of June? For what says the brave old song- 

 couplet of New England's mothers ? That — 



"Spring would be but wintry weather 

 If we had nothing else but spring." 



Every year, even in Massachusetts — even in 

 Michigan — spring, summer, and autumn are 

 sure to come overladen with their gifts and 

 make us a good, long, merry visit. All the 

 other enlightened and well-to-do nations of the 

 world entertain them with the gardening art 

 and its joys and so make fairer, richer and 

 stronger than can be made indoors alone the 

 individual soul, the family, the social, the civic, 

 the national life. In this small matter we 

 Americans are at the wrong end of the proces- 

 sion. What shall we do about it? 



199 



