Closing Words. 307 



satisfy those who have made these subjects a life-long study, and to 

 whom, in fact, I am largely indebted for the little I do know. Still 

 more am I pleased by assurances that I have turned the thoughts of 

 many toward the garden a place that is naturally, and, I think, cor- 

 rectly, associated with man's primal and happiest condition. We must 

 recognize, however, the sad change in the gardening as well as gardeners 

 of our degenerate world. In worm and insect, blight and mildew, in heat, 

 frost, drought and storm, in weeds so innumerable that we are tempted 

 to believe that Nature has a leaning toward total depravity, we have 

 much to contend with ; and in the ignorant, careless, and often dis- 

 honest laborer, who slashes away at random, we find our chief obstacle to 

 success. In spite of all these drawbacks, the work of the garden is the 

 play and pleasure that never palls, and which the oldest and wisest never 

 outgrow. 



I have delayed my departure too long, and, since I cannot place a 

 basket of President Wilder Strawberries on the tables of my readers, 

 I will leave with them the best possible substitute, the exquisite poem 

 of H. H. : 



"MY STRAWBERRY. 



"0 MARVEL, fruit of fruits, I pause 

 To reckon thee. I ask what cause 

 Set free so much of red from heats 

 At core of earth, and mixed such sweets 

 With sour and spice; what was that strength 

 Which, out of darkness, length by length, 

 Spun all thy shining threads of vine, 

 Netting the fields in bond as thine; 

 I see thy tendrils drink by sips 

 From grass and clover's smiling lips; 

 I hear thy roots dig down for wells, 

 Tapping the meadow's hidden cells ; 

 Whole generations of green things, 

 Descended from long lines of springs, 

 I see make room for thee to bide, 

 A quiet comrade by their side; 



