THE LURE OF THE GARDEN 



guiding them past your traps and poisons, and in and 

 out of the tin collars with which you have desperately 

 sought to protect your best beloved seedlings. You 

 may be up early and down late, but the garden, work- 

 ing with a feverish frenzy in the service of its enemy, 

 obsessed like a drug fiend with the passion for its own 

 extermination, is more than apt to win in its suicidal 

 intent, and to leave its beds and borders bare of some 

 of its loveliest possessions. 



If, however, you do succeed in tracking down and 

 slaying the last of those fat pirates, do not dream that 

 you have conquered your garden's predilections toward 

 evil behavior. It has untold resources of wickedness, 

 and once it has set foot upon the broad pathway of 

 destruction, marches merrily along, undeterred by warn- 

 ings and examples. 



One of the mischievous delights of a thoroughly cor- 

 rupt garden is to fill all its roses with a horrid yellow 

 and greenish beetle, so that, should you bend to smell 

 or to pluck one of these queen flowers, crimson, yellow, 

 or white, a mass of scrabbling, long-legged, and hard- 

 shelled insects begin to agitate themselves, crawling 

 out upon your nose or hands, while the half-blown 

 petals tumble shamefully to earth, corroded and gnawed 

 beyond recognition. 



Lacking these, there are myriads of infinitesimal but 

 hateful creatures which a garden, smiling deceitfully 

 from its multicolored faces, will diligently hang on twig 



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