THE COTTAGER'S GARDEN. 261 



ground, provided he has room to plant two or three 

 standard apple-trees and pear-trees, and also some goose- 

 berry and currant-bushes. Even the walls and roof of 

 the cottage might be covered with fruit-bearing trees ; 

 and how much more pleasing this would be to the eye, 

 and how much more profitable to the owner, than the 

 bare and naked walls too commonly seen ! 



Cottagers are little aware how much good might be 

 done to themselves and their families by this attention 

 to their garden ground. The owner of the cottage, 

 well pleased to see things made the most of, would 

 be disposed to give a little help towards stocking the 

 garden. Every one would look with pleasure, as they 

 passed by, at the neat and orderly appearance of the 

 cottage, and would feel disposed to respect the owner, 

 and to do him any good turn in their power. A 

 strange contrast indeed it is when one industrious per- 

 son thus cares for and improves his ground, while his 

 neighbours allow theirs to lie neglected. The writer 

 remembers such a case, where out of six cottages, near 

 together, only one could be looked on with entire satis- 

 faction. Each cottager had a nice strip of garden 

 ground, and kept a pig ; but while heaps of rubbish 

 and patches of weeds deformed too many gardens, there 

 was one always neat and well managed. The little 

 path through this garden was bordered by gooseberry 

 and currant-bushes, and fringed with pot-herbs. The 

 beds were neatly laid out, and no waste or weedy 

 comers left. Crops of cabbage, potatoes, and onions, 

 and little patches of radish and lettuce, promised well 

 for the cottager's comfort ; while near the cottage, and 

 so placed as not to overshadow the crops, were a few 

 well-tended trees of larger growth. The cottage itself 

 peeped out prettily from a mass of foliage, and a tiny 

 flower-bed, just beneath the window, added to its attrac- 

 tions. Very sweet, at evening time, was the scent of 

 the wall-flowers from this miniature flowei'-garden ; and 

 you were all the more disposed to linger over them 



