SOME GARDEN VICES 



But not only the garden is delivered over to a multi- 

 tude of sins. The gardener is by no means exempt. 

 There are gardeners that are among the most trying 

 specimens of humanity, crammed with cantankerous 

 ways and a heavy cross to those with whom they come 

 into constant contact. The grumpy and short-tempered 

 gardener is one of the fixed characters of fiction, the 

 gnarled old man, despotic within his hedges, treating the 

 most legitimate intruder into his domain like a thief or 

 a murderer, and regarding the wishes or the commands 

 of his employer as beneath contempt 



But beside this complete specimen of garden de- 

 pravity, there are acquired vices that seize upon the 

 most amiable, undermining and wrecking the noblest. 

 Chief among these is the garden annual, or nursery and 

 seed-catalogue habit. Persons have been known to 

 develop this pernicious vice to such an extent that no 

 other literature is allowed in their house, and the dis- 

 cussion of any other subject tabooed. The arrival of a 

 new bunch of these highly colored and disingenuous 

 publications is feverishly awaited, and, once in hand, a 

 slave to this habit cannot be lured away from their 

 perusal. Business, domestic ties, and the sweet uses 

 of society, all fall before the tyrant. Hour after hour 

 the victim is to be seen bent over the pages, marking 

 them up with occult signs, turning down corners, cutting 

 out segments, and writing dozens upon dozens of letters 

 concerning the items thus distinguished. 



