THE AMATEUR GARDEN 



chance along between March and December. 

 But let no souvenir tree, however planted, be 

 treated, after planting, as other than a living 

 thing if you would be just to it, to your friend, 

 or to yourself. Cultivate it; coax it on; and it 

 will grow two or three or four times as fast as if 

 left to fight its daily battle for life unaided. And 

 do not forbear to plant trees because they grow 

 so slowly. They need not. They do not. With 

 a little attention they grow so swiftly ! Before 

 you know it you are sitting in their shade. Be- 

 sides Sir Arthur's maple the only souvenir tree 

 we have lost was a tulip-tree planted by my friend 

 of half a lifetime, the late Franklin H. Head. 



So much for my grove. I write of it not in 

 self-complacency. My many blunders, some of 

 them yet to be made, are a good insurance 

 against that. I write because of the countless 

 acres as good as mine, in this great, dear Amer- 

 ica, which might now be giving their owners all 

 the healthful pastime, private solace, or solitary 

 or social delights which this one yields, yet which 

 are only "waste lands" or "holes in the ground" 

 because unavailable for house lots or tillage. 



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