The American Garden 



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The Old-Time Garden. 



HE beauty of the old-time garden never lessens. Year after year it has bloomed its 

 fine old flowers; year after year its hedges have thriven, its box borders grown greener 

 and greener, its flowers more and more redolent of the simple life of the past. Very 

 beautiful these fine old garden spots are, and very rare, for the march of progress 

 and the changes in taste have swept so many of them awa}' that comparatively few have 

 survived to delight the eye and enchant the fancy of contemporary folk. 



The verv rarity of these gardens — of good old gardens, of old gardens well grown 

 and well preserved, of old gardens that to-day are as brimful of old plants as of }'ore— adds 

 vastly to the present-day appreciation of them. The jiassion for antiques is now well-nigh 

 universal, and old gardens are among the rarest of antiquities, because their survival has 

 meant, in most cases, more years of continuous care and thought than Americans, as 

 a people, are apt to lavish on any object. The old garden has had to be maintained and 

 tended year after year, and from sheer love of its beauty and old-timehness. Its survival 

 is hardly short of a miracle. 



The old-time gardens teach a rare lesson of constant care and uninterrupted interest. 

 They have not survived by accident nor through inherent sturdiness of growth. Their stout 

 old plants have needed constant replenishing; the l)orders of box have yearned for trimming; 

 the paths have cried aloud for cleaning; the shrubbery must be cut, and the ^'ines trained, and 

 the whole kept in that spick-and-span orderliness which seems so charmingh- characteristic of 

 old-time life. 



The old-time garden makers were not concerned with the mighty jiroblems which now 

 beset the designers of modern fine gardens. The materials at their hands were few and unim- 

 portant. They planted shrubs easy of cultivation ; they made borders of ])lants close at hand ; 

 they planted the seeds of ready growing annual plants, and were content to watch their sim|3le 

 flowers grow and bloom and transform what may have been a waste into a bower of color 

 and foHage. The homehness of the plants was the best evidence of the dee])-seated love of 

 the old garden maker. He knew little of vistas and axes, and of garden architecture he had 

 never heard; but out of the simple plants that thrived in the open soil he created gardens that, 

 when they have survived, have been sources of unending joy to those who knew them, who 

 walked in their narrow paths, and loved each simple old-time flower. 



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