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Gardener's Faith 



In the industrial centres, children are regarded as 

 a commercial asset, to be turned to profit as wage- 

 earners in the years between the day when they 

 leave school and the day when they marry, and 

 to provide a pension for their parents when they 

 are past work. . . . The analogy, like most 

 analogies, is false. There never arises a point in 

 the career of a garden when it becomes self-sup- 

 porting, but after a certain period there does 

 come a time when waste and mistakes may be 

 turned to profit. There is probably no corner 

 which does not contain some plants, or trees, or 

 shrubs, living in obscurity, and denied their full 

 effect, and when there is a new scheme toward the 

 result is infinitely more satisfactory if it be achieved 

 with materials ready to hand rather than with 

 costly and rare plants purchased at vast expense, 

 though, to be quite honest, I am aching to order 

 from Gauntlett's some of his wonderful and lovely 

 Japanese trees, etc. 



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