IS THE WILD GARDEN. 



a fortnight in pleasure g7Vimds, as now pjxictised, is a great 

 and costly mistahe. We want shaven carpets of grass liere 

 and there, but what cruel nonsense both to men and grass it 

 is to shave as many foolish men shave their faces ! There 

 are indeed places where they boast of mowing forty acres ! 

 Who would not rather see the waving grass with countless 

 flowers than a close shaven surface without a blossom i 

 Imagine the labour wasted in this ridiculous labour of cutting 

 the heads off flowers and grass. Let the grass grow till lit to 

 cut for hay, and we may enjoy in it a Avorld of lovely flowers 

 that will blossom and perfect their growth before the grass 

 has to be mown ; more than one person who has carried out 

 the ideas expressed in this book has waving lawns of feathery 

 grass where he used to shave the grass every ten days ; a 

 prairie of flowers where a daisy was not allowed to peep ; and 

 some addition to his hay crop as he allows the grass to 

 grow till it is ht for that purpose. 



It is not only to places in which shrubberies, and planta- 

 tions, and belts of grass in the rougher parts of the pleasure- 

 ground, and shady moss-bordered wood-walks occur that these 

 remarks apply. The suburban garden, with its single fringe 

 of planting, may show like beauty, to some extent. It may 

 have the Solomon's Seal arching forth from a shady recess, 

 behind tufts of the sweet-scented Xarcissus, while in every 

 case tliere may be wild fringes of strong and hardy flowers in 

 the spring sun, and they cannot he cut off l>y harsh winds as 

 when exposed in the open garden. What has already been 

 stated is, I hope, sufficient to show to everybody the kind of 

 place that mny be used for their culture. Wild and semi-wild 

 places, rough banks in or near the pleasure-ground or flower- 



