THE POND 169 



airs over the local vegetation. One rather wishes they 

 would all flower, and so perish, and leave a gaping 

 void. Yet that is a wicked wish, and I should be the 

 first to regret it if the thing really happened. 



We take ourselves too seriously ; our neighbours 

 not seriously enough. This I believe to be true 

 of life, and it is also true of gardens. Too often 

 I have felt scornful of other gardens, and too 

 often my neighbours have scoffed at mine. Behind 

 my back they call my compound a 'stuffy little 

 nursery,' and I speak of theirs lightly as howling 

 wildernesses. This is wrong and unkind. We must 

 give and take in visiting other people's gardens, and 

 try to see from the standpoint of the owners. The 

 motive is everything. Some men merely garden for 

 health. In that case, you must look at the gardener 

 rather than the garden, to see whether his end has 

 been attained. 



If we are to be sane and contented and possible 

 company for our kind, a toy is necessary to each one 

 of us. A garden is a very good toy, and, as in the 

 case of sportsmen, one destroys nature's rarest and 

 most ferocious creations at the cost to himself of 

 perhaps fifty pounds a head, while another, quite as 

 keen, has to be content with an annual fortnight 

 among the partridges ; so in gardening, one man 

 may play with everything that grows, and keep fifty 

 gardeners to look after them, while another is re- 

 duced to a window-garden up three flights of steps. 



Most of our gardens lie between these extremes ; 

 but if the thing were practicable I would plant pine- 



