My Ambition Grows 33 



ing and thawing, and is also an admirable fertilizer, as it 

 speedily decays. Then they were refilled with a compost as 

 the first beds had been. To do this I had several cartloads of 

 black muck, garden loam, sand, manure and wood ashes 

 hauled onto the bank near the house and dumped separately, 

 and a little at a time was hoed from each into a central pile, 

 which a man wheeled to the beds. The old subsoil was 

 thrown over the new walls, which bounded the extension on 

 the west and south, and by filling up to the level of the top on 

 the outside of the walls and back to the rising bank, a new 

 elevation was established. I have now done this twice, and 

 have thus secured a double terrace on the west side of the 

 garden, from which side the main portion presents the ap- 

 pearance of a sunken garden, with the first terrace three feet 

 and the second rising six or more feet above the original level. 

 Effective as this arrangement is, it was conceived as a matter 

 of pure utility, and a convenient means of disposing of the 

 surplus earth in excavating the bank, and saved carting it off. 

 It is a safe statement to make that where necessity is used as a 

 guide, a certain kind of beauty inevitably follows. For this 

 reason it is not well to imitate another's work, but to follow 

 where your own conditions lead. I much regretted at first 

 that I had no garden plans to study for a model; but, as I now 

 see my own completed, I cannot imagine it as successful in any 

 other form, owing to the peculiar conformation of the land. 

 It has lent itself to my convenience in the gradual exten- 

 sions from year to year; it offers every condition, from full 

 exposure to the sun to complete shade, of dry and moist situa- 

 tions. Certain beds have been planted so as to maintain 

 bloom the whole season through; others are arranged to keep 

 up the appearance of bounty by maturing at a late day when 

 many things are gone. Though made of units, the garden is 

 composite in its structure. 



