RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 207 



ready to serve me beyond my deserts when its 

 time comes. And this has taken the place of an 

 abandoned, overrun, ridgy, dying vineyard of 

 five years ago ! 



All this change; and yet it is, and looks like, 

 an old place. Not only had I a memory of my 

 own old home place to restrain me, but I had the 

 admonitions of Mr. Manning, to prevent the sort 

 of horror I have so often seen with sadness the 

 cutting down of everything, so as to "start afresh." 

 Here, instead, the old features have been zeal- 

 ously preserved, and the new plantings and pla- 

 cings adapted to them. The result is a mature and 

 home-ly (please note the hyphen, and what it 

 means) beauty that could not have been had in a 

 generation if we had "started afresh." 



The retrospect is pleasing, at least to us of the 

 growing garden, in and with which we also have 

 grown and gained in spirit and in health. Now 

 what of the prospect? 



These vista plant-pictures are to be perfected, 

 so that they will tell us in every season more of the 

 goodness of the God of the outdoors. This implies 

 study, effort, fruitful mistakes, trials, changes. 

 Then I want here gathered, not in a museum fash- 

 ion of orderly display, but as part of a living and 

 growing garden, all the good plants, particularly 



