78 A WHITE-PAPER GARDEN 



I am very fond of the long, narrow beds 

 which are always connected with the village 

 garden ways. Proper beds are two, or at 

 most three feet wide, and as long as possible, 

 with strips of grassy sod as wide or wider 

 between. There is no way in which the 

 amateur gardener can so easily plant, and dig, 

 and weed, and fertilise, and cover his pets as 

 in these beds which can be reached into, or 

 leaned over so comfortably. In the days of 

 front yards, which are gone where so many 

 dear and beautiful things are gone, it was 

 thus that the walk that led from the front 

 door to the front gate was adorned. In them 

 grew the choicest bushes and plants pos- 

 sessed by the ladies, to whom chiefly the 

 flowers belonged, and who thus offered to 

 their guests the most charming and delicate 

 welcomes and farewells. Larger shrubs, and 

 hardier, coarser flowers grew along the fences 

 dividing the yard from its fellows on either 

 hand, and one has only to be old enough 

 to be able to remember the days when 

 the individual was not yet merged into the 

 mass, and it was still possible to express 

 oneself, and not be, of necessity, a copy of 



