Some Gardeners I Have Known 153 



ancholy as I walk among my children little creatures that 

 have taken form at my bidding; for I am burdened with the 

 heavy responsibility of having called so many into existence, 

 and there are seasons when I cannot provide properly for 

 their meat and drink, and on every side I feel their mute 

 claims upon me, their foster parent. We feel a pitiful sym- 

 pathy for the limitations of our dumb four-footed brothers, 

 who yet speak eloquently through their eyes; but what of 

 the unuttered gratitude or sorrows of our garden friends, 

 who find no adequate expression to reach the careless heart 

 of him who is pledged to love and cherish them? Their 

 dumb silence touches me almost more deeply in their joy on 

 a June morning than does their bitter pain under an August 

 drought. 



Spencer says the quality of life is determined by the degree 

 of response to environment. If this be true, what is the quality 

 of life that points a grown-up finger helplessly at the ordinary 

 maple, oak or elm, our daily companions in either city or 

 country, and says, "What tree is that?" that glances casually 

 at the commonest flowers, poppies, morning-glories even a 

 nasturtium and asks in good faith, " What is that ? " Surely 

 such a response to environment needs quickening, and I give 

 as the chief reason for my garden efforts that I wanted to 

 know something definite of the floral world; I wanted to re- 

 spond intelligently to this beautiful phase of human environ- 

 ment. A single specimen is sufficient to study and cherish. 

 It is enough for me to have a single Ulmariajilipendula, with 

 its extending family, and watch with keen interest for the 

 precise date when it breaks each year into soft foamy white 

 bloom. No stray visitor in the garden knows of my modest 

 Ulmaria, nor of my one exquisite Triteleia laxa, now multi- 

 plied twentyfold, with its fragile thread-like stems and 

 starry blossoms, nor the corner where the Houstonia grows, 



