/IDaintenance 227 



present, beauties are continually being added without 

 losing or sacrificing those already in existence. The 

 chief tool which we use for construction, i.e., our 

 brush and chisel, is the spade, the chief tool for 

 maintenance and improvement is the axe. It must 

 not rest for a single winter, or it will happen to us 

 with the trees as it did with the water-carriers in 

 the Tale of the * Wizard's Apprentice* they will 

 grow over our heads." 1 



It is more than a case of overcrowding a design which 

 is always about to be but never is, in Fichte's phrase. 

 It is also in other words always becoming, an ebb and 

 flow, an unceasing evolution of skilled results, contin- 

 ually improvement, or retrogression, deterioration, and 

 decay. Nature never stands still. It is ever increasing 

 life or ever increasing decay, oscillation between the 

 two, steadily or spasmodically, as the one gets the 

 upper hand of the other. Consequently the maintenance 

 and care must be unceasing and vigilant and based 

 on penetrating study of new conditions as they arise. 

 The seasons, cold, heat, drought, insect life, fungi, arid 

 pests of every sort, all need to be watched intelligently 

 and continually. 



It is a common saying that he, or she, knows how to 

 make a plant grow. It thrives under his hand. A 

 great propagator handles plants like a wizard. There is 

 something, people think, uncanny in such successful 

 operations. But, after all, it is chiefly a matter of 



1 Prince Puckler, Hints on Landscape Gardening. 



