The Garden Grows 21 



den some of it being coaxed, and some quietly appropri- 

 ated wood ashes, leaf mold from the woods, sand and 

 manure. I had a man place the larger boulders in the corner, 

 where the long-talked-of seat was made, and the smaller ones 

 I laid up in a low wall on two sides. This was another com- 

 promise with the original idea. I had intended to have the 

 stones hauled away just where was not clear, but some- 

 where. But this use of them as boundary walls proved a much 

 easier solution; and from this first makeshift disposition of the 

 stones came the later construction of the garden walls, which 

 are not only one of the chief beauties of the garden but have 

 proved to be of the greatest value to me. Of these walls I 

 shall speak more at length later. A rustic fence on two sides 

 was made from young spruces from our woods, the vine was 

 woven through the boughs of trees into an arbor over the stone 

 seat, and finally everything was in readiness for planting my 

 seeds. Measured by the labor expended on bushes, boulders, 

 the rustic fence and preparing the compost, the twenty-five- 

 foot garden was enormous; but when enclosed by walls on 

 three sides, it shrank to the size of a postage-stamp. I con- 

 soled myself with the thought that everything is dwarfed when 

 measured by Nature's yardstick. Her areas are so vast that 

 the ground plans for the most spacious house become aston- 

 ishingly small when staked out. 



When I came to follow the diagrams made for sowing seeds, 

 I saw that too many things had been crowded into a small 

 space, and though the plans were followed in a way, I hap- 

 pened upon a much safer method of distribution, that I still 

 use, which is to scatter the packages of seed over the allotted 

 ground, and when the bed is thus apportioned, one can better 

 judge how much space should be given to each variety. 



I planted five and twenty varieties of seeds, but recall only a 

 few of them, and these are remembered chiefly for their mis- 



