56 WILD GARDENING 



Then your "telegraph poles" will begin to branch out from below 

 and make dignified and interesting trees. You can get a great deal 

 of the atmosphere of English pleasure woods in four years simply 

 by thinning the trees. And meanwhile you can be planting blue- 

 bells and other bulbs, for they will not be harmed by the falling 

 of trees. (See plates 5 and 24.) 



You gentlemen of Long Island, who own hundreds of acres of 

 woods, do you know why you enter them about once a year? 

 It is because you cannot stroll in woods that are full of mosquitoes, 

 briers, and burrs. And, beside, there is nothing to see, because 

 you never use the axe or plant anything. Yet you could quad- 

 ruple the value of your wooded land as residential property in four 

 years by wild gardening. Last winter, near Westbury, I saw two 

 estates on which twenty thousand dead chestnut trees had 

 been cut out. If the owners had sold the live trees for poles 

 four years ago, when they were warned about this incurable 

 disease, they would have received enough to pay all the expense 

 of transforming those woods into a charming English park. Last 

 spring, for instance, they might have had a million blue-bells 

 in those woods, the mosquitoes under control, everything that 

 would tear flesh or clothing removed, and the trees all growing 

 large and shapely. 



It is only thirty years ago that the phrase "wild gardening" 

 was invented by Mr. William Robinson, who wrote a book on the 

 subject that is a joy. In the spring of 1909 I went to see his 

 estate, where the idea of wild gardening is carried out on a glorious 

 scale. I was too late to see the daffodils, which he used to plant 

 by the ton and even by the car load, but the pictures on plates 20, 23, 

 26 and 88, give some idea of what the place is like. Mr. Robinson 

 gave me these four photographs by Mr. Champion, with the 



