CHAPTER SIXTEEN 



TROUBLE 



More grows in the garden than the gardener sows. 



Old Proverb. 

 Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds. 



Shakespeare. 



YES, even into the garden trouble finds its way. 

 Borne upon the silver blade of the frost, the 

 beating wings of the wind, the parched tongue 

 of the drought, it burrows in the ground, flies in the air, 

 creeps in at the gate and over the wall, and here, as 

 elsewhere, the seeds of trouble are sown and lusty prog- 

 eny arise and thrive. Trouble in the garden, however, 

 is without sting; rather is there incentive and exhil- 

 aration in the problems to be met and solved, the ene- 

 mies to be vanquished. 



Garden trouble may for convenience of attack be di- 

 vided into five sections, each of which has a rather de- 

 pressing number of subdivisions that is, they seem 

 depressing when gathered together into one chapter, as 

 they never are in any one garden, for the blessings in 

 every garden far outnumber the adversities. Here is the 

 blacklist: weeds, insects, plant diseases, animals, and 

 the elements. I believe there are those who would 



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